Fr. Deacon Andrew Bennett is departing from his director of faith communities engagement role with the Cardus think tank to pursue a new professional challenge after a decade defined by meaningful engagement with faith leaders, standing for religious freedom in the public square and guiding important research initiatives.

The longtime Ottawa resident is moving west to Calgary to serve as executive director of the private K-to-12 Catholic university preparatory institution Clearwater Academy, a member of the Regnum Christi school network.

In an interview with The Catholic Register, Bennett, 53, said the chance to help form the next generation of faith-driven leaders at a highly regarded school was compelling. He also feels called to take on a new professional challenge and is eager to contribute to the future of Catholic education nationwide.

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“What can the approach taken at Clearwater, and other schools of its kind, offer in terms of best practices with authentically integrating Catholic faith into all aspects of teaching, not just religious studies. What do we have to offer as a model for the rest of the country? That's also an exciting prospect,” said Bennett.

Bennett, who served as Canada’s Ambassador for Religious Freedom and Head of Delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) from 2013 to 2016, will continue a professional relationship with Cardus, which has named him a senior fellow. He will remain involved in work on religious freedom and faith community engagement and continue as a key advisor to the Simeon Initiative, a national movement he founded to strengthen relationships between Canadian Christians and Jews and combat anti-Semitism.

Though sad to lose his friend as a full-time colleague, Cardus president Brian Dijkema is excited about Bennett’s next professional chapter.

“We talk about our vocations and particularly as Christians, as we think about work, it is about more than money or status,” said Dijkema. “It is about the broader project of living out what we've been called to do. We sense our gifts and the world's needs, and where those are best met. I think Andrew was feeling that with his gifts and the world's needs, Catholic education was a place where he could serve.”

Dijkema’s appraisal of Bennett’s tenure is that he cultivated “a very strong legacy of how you can be a public figure and a figure of faith at the same time and work for the common good.”

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When asked about how the faith communities engagement department will proceed following Bennett’s tenure at the helm, Dijkema said the institute will spend some time evaluating goals for the future. He said Cardus “is definitely committed to” the religious freedom and faith communities engagement file but acknowledged “it'll probably look a little bit different. Andrew is a unique leader in that regard.”

Bennett said that Cardus was “a wonderful place for me to spend the last decade” as “there's a clarity around the importance of our common life as Canadians and the role of faith in that common life. To articulate that through our work over these past 10 years has been a real blessing for me.”

Three projects stand out above the others for Bennett, a 2025 recipient of the King Charles III Coronation Medal.

The first is his multi-year endeavour to travel across Canada to dialogue with Indigenous Christians. It was illuminating to hear about “how they understand their Indigenous culture in relation to their deep Christian faith, and that there's no incoherence between their Indigenous culture and their Christianity.”

He also spoke fondly about launching the Communio program in Ottawa in September 2021 for Christian young professionals. The 100 young men and women between the ages of 25 and 40 received mentorship and formation to help them live out a confident public faith. A Communio network was recently launched in Montreal.

Third, perhaps his most important effort of the past two years, is uniting Christians and Jews through the Simeon Initiative. The late 2024 Canadian Christian Declaration on Anti-Semitism garnered over 750 signatories.

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“We Christians have a particular duty since our Lord Jesus Christ is a Jew,” said Bennett. “The mother of God was a Jew. The 12 apostles were all Jews. We have this unique relationship with the Jewish people. I firmly believe, especially in the face of these increasing levels of anti-Semitism in the country, that we have this absolute duty to engage with the Jewish people and stand with them as our friends, as our fellow citizens, and truly fight against the hatred that we see in our streets and in various parts of our institutions across the country.”

You can view Bennett’s academic contributions to Cardus by visiting cardus.ca.