HUMANITAS FOUNDER

Fr. Ellwood "Bud" Kieser

Fr. Ellwood Kieser (“Fr. Bud”) grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from La Salle College in 1950. That same year he joined the Paulist Fathers. He earned his Ph.D. in theology of communications from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, in 1973. His dissertation was titled Cinema as a Religious Experience.

Fr. Kieser founded Paulist Productions in 1968 with the sole intention of producing life-enriching programming that could address social issues and moral questions. For twenty-three years, Fr. Kieser executive-produced the weekly anthology series Insight. As one of the longest-running weekly syndicated shows, Insight explored the search for meaning, freedom, and love through various storytelling forms such as comedy, melodrama, and fantasy.  

Believing in the power of television and film to change culture, Kieser founded the Humanitas Prizes in 1974 to encourage and empower writers.

While serving as a Paulist priest for 44 years, Fr. Bud also garnered six Emmys for Insight, a Christopher Award, a Gabriel Award, the Imogen Award, and a Board of Directors award from CIMA. On September 16, 2000, he died at the age of 71.

To learn more about Fr. Kieser, the founding of Humanitas and the Humanitas Prizes, explore this 2023 article from the Los Angeles Times.