The 75-year-old Chicoutimi priest who has taught canon law at St. Paul University in Ottawa, Catholic University of America in Washington and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium is the 41st recipient of the Rule of Law Award, given at the annual convention of the society. 

This year’s conference was held in St. Louis, Missouri. He joins a list of distinguished canonists who include Jesuit Fr. Ladislas Örsy, who engaged in a 1999 public debate with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger about the relative authority of documents issued by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Raymond Burke who was recently removed from his post as Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, Pagé’s colleague on the faculty at St. Paul University Oblate Fr. William Woestman and Archdiocese of Milwaukee chancellor Barbara Anne Cusack. 

Page previously won the Jean Thorn Canon Law Award of Merit in 1997. 

He’s a former president of the Canadian Canon Law Society and a co-author of the 2002 New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law. He holds advanced degrees in Canon Law from Rome’s Gregorian University, the University of Ottawa and St. Paul University. 

Membership in the Canon Law Society of America extends to over 1,500 men and women, lay and ordained, in 43 countries. It was formed in 1939.