Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington will be the 2008 recipient of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation’s Path of Peace Award, in recognition of his longstanding and active encouragement of steps toward a just and secure peace in the Holy Land.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington will be the 2008 recipient of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation’s (HCEF) Path of Peace Award, in recognition of his longstanding and active encouragement of steps toward a just and secure peace in the Holy Land.

HCEF’s annual Path of Peace Award honors persons who have advocated and worked for the cause of peace in the Middle East, and who have promoted peaceful reconciliation of Arabs and Israelis — Muslims, Christians and Jews.

HCEF’s Path of Peace Award will be presented to Cardinal McCarrick at the foundation’s 10th International Conference Awards Banquet on the evening of Friday, October 24, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bethesda, Maryland.

Commenting on HCEF’s selection for the award, HCEF President/CEO Rateb Rabie said, "Cardinal McCarrick stands as an living testament to faith in action. When I accompanied him during his 2000 visit to the Holy Land with Pope John Paul II, I witnessed firsthand how he brought together leaders of all faiths — rabbis, bishops and imams — and inspired them to take chances for peace where politicians were not yet prepared to do so."

Cardinal McCarrick has been a prominent champion of security, justice, prosperity and peace in the Holy Land for decades. He continues to travel frequently to the Holy Land, visiting leaders of all communities in Palestine and Israel and urging them to overcome their fears and biases, and to take chances for peace.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick
Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, 2008 Path of Peace Award recipient

Cardinal McCarrick also advances the cause of peace through his work on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services. He also is a member of the Council for Strategic and International Studies.

Cardinal McCarrick was born in New York City in 1930, and is a past chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committees on Domestic Policy, International Policy, Migration, and Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe. He has also served on the Administrative, Doctrine, Laity, Latin America and Missions Committees. Cardinal McCarrick has been chancellor of the Catholic University of America and chairman of the board of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. He also serves on the board of Catholic Relief Services.

Cardinal McCarrick with Church heads
Left to right: Sir Rateb Rabie (HCEF President/CEO), Archimandrite Innokentios Exarchos (Greek Diocese of Jerusalem), H.B. Michel Sabbah (Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem), Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick (Archbishop Emeritus of Washington), H.G Munib Younan (Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem), Carl A. Anderson (Supreme Knight, Knights of Columbus), Fr. Robert C. Waller (Pastor of St. Andrew Parish, Milford, OH)

Cardinal McCarrick has visited many nations as a human rights advocate, and in 1996, then-Archbishop McCarrick was invited to serve on the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. In 1998, he was one of three American clerics invited to China to discuss religious freedoms in that country. From 1999 to 2001, he was a member of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom.

In 2000, Cardinal McCarrick was honored by the presidents of Lebanon and the United States for his work on human rights, just two of many honors he has received. In April 2005, he was one of 115 cardinals who participated in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI as the successor to Pope John Paul II.

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