The Becket Fund’s Executive Director Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz to Receive 2013 Outstanding Catholic Leadership Award

Washington, D.C. – On Saturday, November 9, 2013, Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz, Executive Director of Becket, will be receiving one of the 2013 Awards for Outstanding Catholic Leadership from the Catholic Leadership Institute in an awards ceremony in Baltimore, Maryland. Developed in 2000, the Outstanding Catholic Leadership Award honors individuals for their exemplary Catholic leadership in the community and in the Church.

“Kristina’s work with Becket is a model of excellence,” said Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia, in a statement. “Given her outstanding leadership in protecting the religious freedom of all faiths, she was a natural nominee.”

Kristina first joined Becket in 1995, and has served as the Executive Director since 2010. Her prior experience working for the US Ambassador José Sorzano at the Cuban American National Foundation and, later, the UN Human Rights Commission, inspired Kristina with a passion for liberty. She continued working on raising awareness of the plight of political prisoners in Cuba and worked for ten years for the New York Times bestselling author and former political prisoner Armando Valladares, who was named Ambassador to the UN. She also served as an advisor to the US delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission.  The delegation won recognition for its achievements on human rights advocacy, including the State Department’s Superior Honor Award. The Catholic Leadership Institute is pleased to honor her inspiring dedication and leadership in advancing liberty for all.

The Catholic Leadership Institute’s mission is “to build Catholic leaders for today and tomorrow,” and has been highlighting the outstanding Catholic leadership of individuals for over a decade.  The awards presentation will take place from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. in the Renaissance Hotel in the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

Becket is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions—from Anglicans to Zoroastrians. For 18 years its attorneys have been recognized as experts in the field of church-state law. Becket recently won a 9-0 Supreme Court victory in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, which The Wall Street Journal called one of “the most important religious liberty cases in a half century.”

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