Becket Fund to award Canterbury Medal to Denver archbishop

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced last week it will award its highest honor, the Canterbury Medal, to Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., at the organization’s 15th anniversary dinner in Manhattan on May 7.

Each year, the Becket Fund awards the Canterbury Medal to the person who has “most resolutely refused to render to Caesar that which is God’s.” Past Canterbury Medalists include Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann, financiers Foster Friess and Ted Forstmann, and former Ambassador to the Vatican James R. Nicholson.

“We are especially proud to add Archbishop Chaput to this distinguished list,” said Becket Fund president Kevin “Seamus” Hasson. “He is neither shy nor soft-spoken when he believes religious liberty in general or his Roman Catholic faith are in jeopardy. It is we who are honored by his acceptance of our medal.”

The archbishop’s book, “Render Unto Caesar,” as well as his prominent interventions in the public square have made important contributions to religious liberty and the national political discourse, organization officials said.

CNN reporter and legendary Vatican journalist John Allen has noted that Archbishop Chaput writes not just for Catholics “but for anyone who cares about the state of America’s soul.”
The archbishop has consistently insisted that American democracy depends on an engaged citizenry—people of character, including religious believers, fighting for their beliefs in the public square—respectfully but vigorously, and without apology.

Archbishop Chaput is a former two-term member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a tenure which included missions to China and Turkey. A member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, he is the first Native American archbishop.

Based in Washington, D.C., The Becket Fund is a nonpartisan, interfaith, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions, in the United States and abroad.