As supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, Carl A. Anderson is the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the world’s largest Catholic family fraternal service organization, which has more than 1.8 million members.
Mr. Anderson has had a distinguished career as a public servant and educator. From 1983 to 1987, he served in various positions of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, including special assistant to the President and acting director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. Following his service at the White House, Mr. Anderson served for nearly a decade as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
From 1983 to 1998, Mr. Anderson taught as a visiting professor of family law at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. In 1988, he became the founding vice president and first dean of the Washington, D.C., session of this graduate school of theology now located at The Catholic University of America.
Mr. Anderson has served as assistant supreme secretary and supreme secretary of the Knights of Columbus until becoming supreme knight in October 2000. Prior to that, he served as the Order vice president for public policy from 1987 to 1997. He has been grand knight, district deputy, state advocate, state secretary and state deputy for the District of Columbia jurisdiction.
Since Mr. Anderson assumed the responsibilities of supreme knight in 2000, the Knights of Columbus has achieved new heights in charitable giving, providing in its latest year $155 million directly to charity and more than 70 million hours in volunteer service.
Mr. Anderson holds degrees in philosophy from Seattle University and in law from the University of Denver. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and is admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He and his wife, Dorian, are the parents of five children.
For Mr. Anderson’s full biography and more information on the Knights of Columbus, please visit httpss://www.kofc.org/
Read Carl Anderson remarks – 2013 Red Mass
Vicar general Bishop Robert P. Deeley celebrates the annual Red Mass for members of the legal professions, Sept. 29, 2013 at the Cathedral the Holy Cross. Following the Mass, members of the Catholic Lawyers Guild of the Archdiocese of Boston gathered at the Seaport Hotel for the Red Mass Luncheon where they heard a keynote address by Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson.
Pilot photo/ Gregory L. Tracy
