McQueen honoured with CCRL’s Exner Award

From serving as a lawyer in her native Scotland to becoming one of Canada’s most esteemed bioethicists and theologians, Dr. Moira McQueen has followed a remarkable path.

The executive director of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute (CCBI) from 2004 to 2025 told The Catholic Register she “didn’t see the hand of God very directly, but I certainly can see it now.”

It is a time for retrospection as McQueen will receive the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Catholic Excellence in Public Life. Each year the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) presents this honour at its annual fall dinner, scheduled on Nov. 18 at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church in Toronto’s west end.

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McQueen expressed gratitude for the recognition and admiration for the CCRL’s public witness in “trying to protect society and uphold the Gospel values,” especially the “value of life from conception to natural death.”

The scholar who is acutely interested in the intersection of medicine, law and theology has engaged with countless Catholics, health-care professionals and other key stakeholders in the public arena about contentious and complex issues such as euthanasia and assisted suicide, abortion, reproductive technologies and freedom of conscience in health care. She’s written articles, prepared presentations, led programs, spoke to the media and encountered people one-on-one.

When asked to contemplate how she developed her approach to dialoguing with individuals who do not share her convictions, McQueen mused that she “definitely must have changed” over the years from her early days of pro-life advocacy during her 30s.

“I think I realized very early on that I had to be prepared factually and to really know Church teaching better than I did,” said McQueen. “I would admit that as a younger person, I tended to think I knew a lot and then discovered there is a lot more to this than I (recognized) and that is partially why I went into theology instead of returning to law.”

McQueen not only studied moral theology, she taught courses on this rich subject, particularly related to bioethics, at the University of St. Michael’s College from 1994 to 2022, 28 years she deeply treasures.

Her lifelong love for the vocation of teaching is manifest as she still lectures at Assumption University in Windsor, Ont., from time to time. Her mission as an educator was explaining the “why” underpinning Catholic belief.

“What we are doing in theology is looking for those explanations that bring us closer to God but also give us a better anthropology of the human person in the light of that relationship with God,” said McQueen.

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A moment that illustrated how far she developed as a theologian transpired in 2014. Pope Francis named her to the 30-person International Theological Commission for a five-year term. She contributed to major Vatican documents on family, synodality and religious freedom.

“To this day I can tell you that I was truly shocked,” said McQueen. “It came totally out of the blue. It was something I just never thought of. I was really honoured and saw it as a wonderful opportunity to be a part of something at that level of Church teaching.

“The experience of working with the other people was amazing spiritually, academically and socially. They were a wonderful group, and they expressed to me the universal Church as there were only 30 people, but nearly all of different places, languages and cultures all working towards the same end.”

A collaborative environment was among the great gifts McQueen received during her 21 years with CCBI. She approached her role with a spirit of “wanting to be helpful to anybody in the Catholic Church who wanted to know more about theology.

That ethos guided McQueen to create the “For People in the Pews” bioethics lecture series early during her tenure. She and her colleagues created an eight-hour curriculum and delivered the content over four presentations at a participating parish.  Participants became more knowledgeable about the Catholic ethics response to reproductive issues, end-of-life issues, euthanasia and assisted dying. The first lecture was centred on the foundations of Catholic ethics.

Benefiting from hindsight, For People in the Pews was a “form of synodality.”

“It was gathering people together to talk about important issues. It was not (about) just listening to somebody with knowledge but discussing these issues and learning together. I think that is the essence of synodality,” she said.

An important program she co-authored later in her CCBI tenure was Horizons of Hope. This initiative, commissioned by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, educates the faithful about the Church’s teaching on euthanasia and empowers them to promote palliative care.

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“I see it as an educational/spiritual program that’s aimed at helping people in the pews deal with these issues because we know they do cause some moral questions, at least for some people,” said McQueen. “Most of us Catholics who are really participating in the Church at just the ordinary level want to know what the Church says, and most of us want to be in line with what the Church says. It’s an important ministry.”

Just days away from being feted for exemplifying Catholic life in the public square, she intends to continue providing that witness as she goes forward. Teaching, helping Catholic seminarians in their spiritual formation, supporting the Catholic health community when called upon and enjoying her large family with her husband Matthew are all on her hopeful horizon.

(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)

A version of this article appeared in the November 15, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "McQueen honoured with CCRL’s Exner Award".