ABOUT

The Rev. Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett is an ordained deacon in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in the Eparchy (Diocese) of Toronto and Eastern Canada serving at St. John the Baptist Ukrainian-Catholic Shrine in Ottawa.

 

As a public speaker, writer, and commenter he is a leading voice in Canada on religious freedom and on how to live a robust and authentic public faith. He desires to reacquaint our secular society with the sacred and how the religiously faithful contribute to our common life as citizens.

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Fr. Deacon Andrew serves as the Director of the Faith Communities programme at Cardus, Canada’s faith-based think-tank. There he leads research into religious freedom issues in order to educate Canadians on this fundamental freedom and to strengthen the national network of religious freedom advocates. He serves concurrently as Senior Fellow at the Washington, DC-based Religious Freedom Institute.

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A native of Toronto, Fr. Deacon Andrew served as the Government of Canada's first Ambassador for Religious Freedom and Head of the Office of Religious Freedom from 2013 to 2016 during which time he led in championing religious freedom internationally as a core element of Canadian foreign policy. At the same time, he served as Canada's Head of Delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a 31-country body which leads international efforts in Holocaust education, research, and remembrance. He continues to be called upon as an advocate for international religious freedom.

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Fr. Deacon Andrew holds a Ph.D. in Politics (2002) from the University of Edinburgh as well as degrees in history from McGill University (M.A. 1997) and Dalhousie University (B.A. Hons. 1995).

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When not praying, researching, or advocating, Fr. Deacon Andrew is to be found with his fly rod in a stream, listening to bluegrass or Beethoven, or reading a good spy novel or the Church Fathers.