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CV NEWS FEED // Several Catholic clergy members and two lay Catholic legal experts will serve on advisory boards President Donald Trump set up for the Religious Liberty Commission, according to a May 16 White House announcement.
Trump established the commission two weeks ago to “celebrate America’s peaceful religious pluralism, current threats to religious liberty, and strategies to preserve and enhance protections for future generations,” a White House fact sheet stated.
After establishing the commission May 1, Trump on the same day named various leaders to serve on the commission, including prominent Catholic clergy members Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was appointed chair and Dr. Ben Carson as vice chair.
On May 16, Trump appointed advisory boards of religious leaders, legal experts, and lay leaders to the commission.
The religious leader advisory board includes three Catholic bishops and one Catholic priest:
- Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, who also serves on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, and its Committee for Canonical Affairs and Church Governance.
- Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, who launched the “Fortnight for Freedom,” a campaign for United States bishops to protect religious liberty,
- Bishop Kevin Rhoades, of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, who chairs the USCCB Committee on Religious Liberty.
- Father Thomas Ferguson, pastor of Good Shepherd Parish in Alexandria, Virginia and author of Catholic and American: The Political Theology of John Courtney Murray.
An Orthodox bishop, two Protestant pastors, and several rabbis will also be part of the religious leader advisory board.
Two Catholics were among those appointed to the legal expert advisory board:
- Francis Beckwith, a philosophy and church-state studies professor and associate director of the philosophy graduate program at Baylor University
- Gerard Bradley, an author and a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches legal ethics and constitutional law.
The advisory board of lay leaders includes one Catholic:
- Christopher Levenick, director of the Program for Civic Renewal with the Connelly Foundation and the editor-in-chief of Philanthropy magazine.
The lay board also consists of several Protestant and Muslim religious freedom advocates.
