Rik Torfs
religious scholar, politician
Henri Maria Dymphna André Laurent "Rik" Torfs (born 16 October 1956) is a Belgian canon law scholar and media personality. He is a former Senator for the Christian Democratic and Flemish party in the Belgian Federal Parliament and a former Rector of the Catholic University of Leuven.
Education and academic career
He attended the Sint-Gummaruscollege (Lier) and studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the University of Strasbourg. He specialized in ecclesiastical or canon law. He received his JCD in 1987 with a dissertation on the canonical concept of marriage.
In 1988, Torfs became assistant professor in the Faculty of Canon Law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He became full-time professor in 1996. From 1994 to 2003 and 2009 to 2013, he served as Dean of the Faculty. He is a guest professor at the University of Stellenbosch, University of Paris, University of Nijmegen, and University of Strasbourg.
Torfs also serves on the academic advisory board for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University and is a member of the board of experts at International Religious Liberty Association.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2521676. VIAF identifies the subject as 248382234. The Library of Congress control number is n85376310. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1987, 1988 and 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rik Torfs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.