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Bryan Massingale accepted the Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice from the Paulist Center on November 13. Mas­sin­gale, a Catholic priest and theological ethicist, was given the award for his work toward justice and inclusion for Black and LGBTQ people in the Catholic Church.

Previous recipients of the award include Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, and Helen Prejean.

In a statement, the Paulist Center said that for more than four decades Massin­gale had “addressed these twin bases of discrimination,” calling him a modern prophet.

For-profit businesses with sincerely held religious beliefs are exempt from LGBTQ discrimination liability under a decision by a federal judge in Texas. The October 31 ruling came in response to the US Supreme Court’s 2020 landmark ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which held that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.