Mary Ann Glendon: Vice-Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

For Immediate Release
February 26, 2014

WENHAM, MA—On March 20 Gordon College will welcome Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Professor and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy Sees.

Glendon will speak on “Politics as a Vocation.” The 4:30 p.m. lecture in Gordon's Ken Olsen Science Center (MacDonald Auditorium) is free and open to the public, as is a reception that will precede it at 4 p.m.

“Gordon will benefit from hearing Ambassador Glendon’s insights on how Christians engage politics," says Ruth Melkonian-Hoover, associate professor of political science at Gordon. "Given her experiences as an academic and practitioner, and her considerable work on human rights, she is sure to offer an enriching address.”

Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University. She has been the President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences since 2004, and served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See in 2008-2009. She is Vice-Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Glendon writes and teaches in the fields of human rights, comparative law, constitutional law, and political theory. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Academy of Comparative Law, and a past president of the UNESCO-sponsored International Association of Legal Science. She served two terms as a member of the U.S. President's Council on Bioethics (2001-2004), and has represented the Holy See at various conferences, including the 1995 U.N. women's conference in Beijing at which she headed the Vatican delegation.

“Mary Ann Glendon is an amazing scholar and an engaging public intellectual,” says Center for Faith and Inquiry (CFI) Director Tal Howard. In addition to her role as a Vatican Ambassador, she is a signer of Evangelicals and Catholics Together—an ecumenical document aimed at rapprochement between Catholics and Evangelicals.

The “Faith Seeking Understanding Lecture Series” at Gordon College is sponsored by the Center for Faith and Inquiry. This ongoing lecture series brings first-rate guest speakers to Gordon College and the Boston area to address various topics related to Christian thought and practice, the theology of vocation, intellectual commitment, ethics and more.

For information, visit the Center for Faith and Inquiry website or contact Debbie Drost at [email protected].

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