Robert George to receive Canterbury Medal for religious freedom work

Washington D.C., Jun 18, 2010 / 01:43 am

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has announced that it will award Princeton University law professor Robert P. George its Canterbury Medal to honor his work on religious freedom.

Over 350 civil rights and religious leaders representing dozens of religions will gather at the Washington, D.C. Four Seasons hotel on Friday for the Canterbury Medal Dinner to honor George’s work.

The Becket Fund described George as a “leading scholar” of legal and political philosophy and as a “preeminent public intellectual.” Its announcement noted his service on the President’s Council on Bioethics and on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He was also a Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court.

At present he is a member of the UNESCO World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

The Becket Fund did not mention that George was also a key organizer of the Manhattan Declaration, a public commitment to religious liberty, the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.

The Princeton professor, a Catholic, is the co-author of “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life,” which argues that human personhood begins at conception.

“We are proud to be conferring the Canterbury Medal on Professor George,” commented Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, President of the Becket Fund. “In his scholarly and popular writings as well as his public service he has been a brilliant and effective defender of the liberty and the rights of conscience of persons of every tradition of faith.”

Previous recipients of the Canterbury Medal include Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, Rabbi Ronald Sobel of Temple Emmanu-El in New York, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Dr. John Templeton of the Templeton Foundation.