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Veteran actor Martin Sheen will receive a medal next month for his efforts toward social justice.

According to the May 2008 issue of Catholic Digest, Sheen is expected to receive the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame. The Laetare is the oldest and highest honor accorded American Catholics. The university is poised to honor the actor on May 18 during its 163rd commencement exercises.

The medal takes its name from Laetare Sunday. The recipient is announced each year on the date of this celebration, which is always the fourth Sunday in Lent. The medal is inscribed in Latin with "Magna est veritas et prevalebit," or "Truth is mighty and it shall prevail."

Each year, Notre Dame awards the honor to a Catholic who has affected arts and sciences while demonstrating the ideals of the Church and contributing to humanity. The 130 prior awardees have included the late John F. Kennedy, Catholic Worker activist Dorothy Day, death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean and Civil War General William Rosecrans.

In 2005, the Laetare went to Joseph Murray, who performed the first successful organ transplant in 1954. He also won the 1990 Nobel Price for Medicine. The 2006 honoree was jazz musician Dave Brubeck.

Sheen has been a self-dubbed Catholic peace activist and practitioner of social justice for much of his adult life. According to Infoplease.com, the star of television's West Wing was born in Dayton, Ohio on August 3, 1940. He was named Ramon Estevez at birth.

The actor has had a prolific career in both film and television since the late 1960s. His father opposed an acting career. However, Sheen skipped college and got his start in entertainment on stage in New York, where he earned a Tony nomination of his performance in The Subject Was Roses in 1964. He repeated this role four years later on film. It was also in New York that he met Dorothy Day and began his quest for social justice.

He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Sheen was the son of a father whose family came from Spain. His mother hailed from Ireland. Thus far, the actor has been arrested on more than 60 occasions for protesting against what he perceives to be social injustices, among the causes the production of nuclear weapons and the condition of homeless Americans.

He is also well known as the father of actors Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Renee Estevez and Ramon Estevez.

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