PEOPLE

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has accepted a one-year appointment at Yale University to participate in a course on the connection between religion and globalization. Blair’s appointment as Yale’s Howland Distinguished Fellow during the 2008-2009 academic year was announced March 7. Blair, prime minister from 1997-2007, converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism late last year. He plans to launch a foundation this year dedicated to improving interfaith relations.

Mercy Sr. Sharon Euart has been named executive coordinator of the Canon Law Society of America, effective Aug. 1. Euart is the first woman to hold what is the society’s chief administrative officer position. She was president of the organization during 2004-2005. She is a canon law consultant and visiting canon law instructor at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

The Religion Communicators Council has honored Chris Herlinger for the second consecutive year for reporting he has done for NCR. Herlinger is to receive the 2008 DeRose-Hinkhouse Award for his September 2007 report on Afghanistan, “Return to an Unsettled Land.” Herlinger won the award last year for a story in NCR reporting on the Palestinian Territories.

Actor and Catholic activist Martin Sheen is busy collecting awards. In early March it was announced that Sheen will be honored with Notre Dame University’s highest award, the Laetare Medal, as Peacemaker of the year by Pax Christi Metro New York chapter, and with the Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice from the Paulist Center in Boston. Notre Dame noted that Sheen has used his celebrity to draw attention “to issues that cry out for redress,” such as immigrants, the homeless, war, the killing of the unborn, and capital punishment.

National Catholic Reporter, March 21, 2008