SBC Conferences

John Sharpe is a 1993 distinguished graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in English, and emphases in political thought and history. Upon graduation he was awarded the Van Dyke Prize for standing highest in courses required to complete an English major, and received the Nancy R. Wicker Award for his Honours Essay on T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland. Following graduation from Annapolis, he graduated near the top of his classes from Naval Nuclear Power School (Orlando, Fla.), Naval Prototype Training (Charleston, S.C.), and Naval Submarine School (Groton, Conn.). He then served as Division Officer for several divisions aboard the Los Angeles class nuclear-powered submarine USS Atlanta (SSN 712), where he also variously filled the Operations Officer, acting Engineer Officer, and Quality Assurance Officer billets. He made three major Atlantic deployments and numerous shorter, submerged underways while serving on Atlanta. While onboard he also successfully obtained certification from Naval Reactors as a Nuclear Engineer Officer.

His naval service with the Submarine Force concluded with an overseas tour at the U.S. Navy Submarine Headquarters, Mediterranean, in Naples, Italy, where he served as Undersea Warfare Officer, SSBN Operations Officer, and NATO Exercise Planner. He has experience in America’s major military headquarters such as the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Norfolk, Va.; U.S Joint Forces Command, Norfolk, Va.; and the Pentagon. His military decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, the Joint Commendation Medal, the Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Joint Achievement Medal, the Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and numerous service and unit awards.

In September of 2001 Sharpe co-founded IHS Press, the only publisher dedicated exclusively to the social teachings of the Catholic Church. He has re-issued, edited, and annotated works of many of the English writers of the twentieth-century Catholic renaissance, including Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Penty, and Fr. Vincent McNabb. Others of his editorial works include annotated editions of Amintore Fanfani’s Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism and Fr. Heinrich Pesch’s Ethics and the National Economy.

In 2003 Sharpe launched a new IHS Press imprint called Gates of Vienna Books, which specializes in works of history dealing with the defense and decline of Western civilization. GoV Books is currently issuing, among other things, Hilaire Belloc’s historical biographies, and has published his Charles I, Charles II: The Last Rally, and Richelieu thus far.

In 2005 IHS Press launched its third imprint, Light in the Darkness Publications, which was established to look at current events and problems through the light of common sense, sound scholarship, and the wisdom of past ages. The first work of this new, third imprint is a two-volume anthology of articles and essays dealing with the case for war in Iraq in light of the traditional Christian just-war doctrine and other legal, political, and historical considerations.

Sharpe has addressed Catholic groups across the country and has contributed to the country’s most thoughtful and incisive Catholic publications, including The Angelus, The Remnant, and Catholic Family News. Most recently, he has contributed several articles to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy (The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2007) and authored an extensive commentary on Pope Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno for the forthcoming Angelus Press edition of the encyclical. He was also invited in 2005 to join the Acdaemy of Letters at the Catholic Institute of Arts and Letters.