Notre Dame awards religious liberty prize to Becket Fund for Supreme Court wins

Notre Dame Law School awarded its 2026 Prize for Religious Liberty to the Becket Fund — a nonprofit law firm that has secured 13 Supreme Court victories in the past 15 years defending the First Amendment’s religious liberty protections.

“We’re deeply honored to be recognized with the religious liberty prize,” Becket President and CEO Mark Rienzi told EWTN News.

“We’re honored to be able to be part of fighting to protect something that is very important for our country and the Church,” said Reinzi, who accepted the award at the July 8 conclusion of Notre Dame’s sixth annual Religious Liberty Summit in Chicago.

Becket — established in 1994 to provide cost-free legal counsel to those whose religious liberties were violated — has an undefeated record at the Supreme Court.

Its lawyers represented the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby against contraception mandates, defended the rights of Maryland parents to opt their children out of gender-related coursework that conflicted with their religious beliefs, and backed a Catholic foster care agency that only placed children with opposite-sex married couples.

G. Marcus Cole, a dean and professor of law at Notre Dame, said…