Harvard Law School professor and former U.S. ambassador Mary Ann Glendon will receive the 2018 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal in the spring, according to a South Bend Tribune report.
In 2009, Glendon was named as the recipient of the Laetare Medal, the report said. However, she turned the award down because President Barack Obama was the commencement speaker.
According to the report, Glendon said the University’s choice to award Obama with an honorary degree disregarded a 2004 statement from U.S. bishops, which said Catholic institutions should not recognize those whose actions violate the church’s moral teachings.
The Evangelium Vitae Medal has been awarded annually by the Center for Ethics and Culture since 2011. According to the Center's website, the medal honors leaders in the pro-life movements whose actions “have served to proclaim the Gospel of Life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages.”
“Glendon is one of the most extraordinary figures in academia and the global public square,” O. Carter Snead, director of the Center for Ethics and Culture, said in a University press release. “She personifies the goods at the heart of the Evangelium Vitae Medal. Through her work as a world-class scholar and teacher, a diplomat, a White House bioethics adviser and an official of the Holy See, she has provided a joyful, loving and unwavering witness to the dignity of all persons, born and unborn, as created in the image and likeness of God. She sets the standard for all of us who work to build a culture of life worldwide."
University President Fr. John Jenkins said Glendon exemplifies the meaning of the award.
“Mary Ann Glendon is certainly among the most accomplished women in the Church today and a worthy recipient of this year's award,” Jenkins said in the release. “I'm grateful to the Center for Ethics and Culture for recognizing Glendon for her impressive service to the Church and to life.”
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