George Weigel hails Catholic public servant receiving ‘Defender of Religious Freedom Award’

CV NEWS FEED // In a November 13 keynote address, papal biographer George Weigel applauded Thomas Farr, a Catholic who has championed the importance of religious freedom throughout his career.

“Tom freely assumed the obligation to defend and promote religious freedom; no one forced him to do this; it was not necessarily a smart career move. He did it because it was the right thing to do,” Weigel said in the address, according to Catholic World Report. 

Farr co-founded the nonprofit Religious Freedom Institute in 2016 and served as its president from then until January 2023. 

Farr also served in the U.S. military and Foreign Service for 28 years, according to the Religious Freedom Institute. For 10 years he taught as a professor of Practice of Religion and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and has also served as director of the Witherspoon Institute’s International Religious Freedom Task Force, among other leadership roles. 

“The bright line running through a distinguished career… is Tom’s conviction that the truth sets us free in the deepest meaning of freedom — and that religious truth is thus liberating, not constrictive, as so much post-Enlightenment thought would have it,” Weigel said. 

In a gesture spotlighting Farr’s many efforts in defense of religious liberty, the Religious Freedom Institute this week presented him with this year’s “Defender of Religious Freedom Award.” Previous recipients include former Supreme Knight of Columbus Carl A. Anderson, and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, among others.

The November 13 award ceremony honoring Farr is due because he has always recognized “that religious conviction could still play a defining role in shaping events in the modern world,” Weigel said. His address referenced historical examples of Catholics, such as St. John Paul II, whose faith and prayer were instrumental in resisting ideological regimes. 

Religious freedom, which of God and not of the authorities of the world, lays the foundation for all civil liberties, Weigel said. He argued that the United States’ foreign policy establishments and other federal institutions are remiss to recognize this as crucial in matters of human rights. Farr’s efforts throughout his career have helped address this deficiency. 

Among his varied roles, Farr served as the first director of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, which was “perhaps the most challenging” of his endeavors, Weigel said. 

Weigel explained that Farr “and his colleagues have continued to work to educate our diplomats, our serving military officers, and our armed forces chaplains about the importance of religious conviction in shaping world affairs, and about the fundamental role that religious freedom plays in building and sustaining self-governing democracies.”

According to the Religious Freedom Institute, Farr is currently a consultant for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is also on The Catholic University of America’s advisory council for the Human Rights program, and the advisory council Alliance Defending Freedom International, among other positions.

Farr “remains a great public servant, even in the years since his formal public service,” Weigel said in his address, “and the nation owes him an enormous debt of gratitude.”