NEW YORK — Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, said Thursday evening he is intensely devoted to religious freedom.
“Why do I take religious freedom so seriously?” he asked during the Canterbury Medal Gala sponsored by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “Because I take religion very seriously.”
Cardinal Dolan came recently from the conclave at the Vatican to select the new pope and spoke of that experience with equal parts humor and reverence.
Becket honored Cardinal Dolan with the organization’s Canterbury Medal for his “unwavering voice in support of religious liberty for people of all faiths” — including his “work with diverse religious communities, his forthright commentary in the media, and his steadfast defense of religious expression in the public square.”
Elder Quentin L. Cook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Robert P. George of Princeton University each offered brief remarks, lauding Cardinal Dolan at a gala attended by religious, business, academic and political leaders gathered in New York City in the Plaza Hotel.
“His commitment to Christ and His teachings — combined with his inclusive nature, wisdom and remarkable sense of humor — has endeared him to everyone that he encountered,” said Elder Cook.
Cardinal Dolan is equally at home in a variety of settings — addressing those of his faith and those of other faiths, academics or politicians, said Elder Cook. In 2012, he even offered prayers at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions.
“Regardless of who Cardinal Dolan is addressing, he has the remarkable ability to relate on a personal and joyful level,” Elder Cook explained. “He does so in such a warm and gracious way that he is a visible representative of Christ and His teachings.”
He thanked the Catholic leader for his example of love, faithful devotion, and stalwart leadership. “You have demonstrated the vision to stand side by side with people of all faiths, to journey together as far as we are able, but also the courage that is necessary to go our separate ways when we must. You have been a thoughtful and passionate defender of faith, family and religious freedom; a fierce advocate for the poor and disadvantaged; a true man of God and a worthy Shepherd.”
George, himself a recipient of the Canterbury Medal honor in 2010, said Cardinal Dolan “has given a lifetime of service to the church, to the sheep of the flocks he has served, to the people of all faiths of the cities in which he has served, to our nation, and to the world. He has by precept and by example, taught the meaning of the gospel and promoted its principles and values.”
Central among those principles and values are “religious freedom and the rights of conscience, rights central to our dignity as human persons, rights we possess simply by virtue of our humanity,” he said.
Cardinal Dolan has “in word and deed” stood for these rights in this country and for people abroad — wherever people are persecuted. “And he has stood up and spoken out not only for the rights of his fellow Catholics, but for the rights of men and women of all traditions of faith and shades of belief. And there has been no voice stronger against the grotesque evil, the vile curse of antisemitism, than Timothy Cardinal Dolan.”
During his remarks, Cardinal Dolan said his dedication to religious freedom puts him in “very good company” with the founders of the United States of America.
The founders of this country, and their parents, had come here because they were “frustrated in countries where religion was imposed or prescribed — nations where battles were waged to coerce religious conviction, nations where they were hounded and harassed for their beliefs. ‘Not here,’ they insisted. This is not the way that they, or more importantly God, intended it to be.”
Nothing, said the founding fathers, “merited more protection than religious freedom, nothing deserved more top billing in our Constitution,” said Cardinal Dolan.
Not only, he added, was religious freedom to be vigorously guarded in this country, it was “downright essential for the flourishing of this noble experiment in democracy.”
George Washington observed that faith fosters the virtue and responsibility essential to the common good, he said. And Alexis de Tocqueville would later add, democracy would endure in this country, because Americans take religion seriously.
History shows that “every noble cause in the American pedigree was inspired by faith, from Independence itself, to the fight against slavery, to the rights of workers, to an end to racial bigotry, to the cause of peace, to the amelioration of poverty, to the defense of the innocent baby in the womb and grandma in hospice.”
Cardinal Dolan said Becket — which is a nonprofit, public interest law firm — “calls the bluff of those who considered religious freedom an outdated enemy of democracy, insisting instead it’s the very cement keeping the architecture of our house of democracy securely tuckpointed.”
Past honorees of the Canterbury Medal include longtime Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik and President Dallin H. Oaks. Last year Professor Michael W. McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and a former federal judge, was honored with the Canterbury medal.