Carl A. Anderson


Sir Carl Albert Anderson is the thirteenth and current Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus. Anderson is vice president of the Washington session of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.
In addition, Anderson serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and is a former board member of the National Catholic Educational Association.

Education

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.
Anderson has received honorary doctorates from The Catholic University of America, The Pontifical Theology Academy of Kraków, Sacred Heart University, Albertus Magnus College, Ave Maria University, St. Vincent’s Seminary, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and Ave Maria Law School.

Career in public policy and academia

During the administration of Ronald Reagan, Anderson 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. During that time, he, along with many others in the White House, disagreed with U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop about how to speak about AIDS, writing that "failure to make moral judgments on this behavior is why we have this epidemic".
Following his service at the White House, Anderson served for nearly a decade as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. From 1976-81 he was a legislative assistant to Senator Jesse Helms. From 1981 to 1983 he served as counselor to the Under Secretary of Health and Human Services at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for Secretaries Richard Schweiker and Margaret Heckler.
From 1983 to 1998 Anderson taught as a visiting professor of family law at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family located at the Pontifical Lateran University. Anderson became the founding vice president and first dean of the Washington, D.C. session of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family in 1988.

Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus

As Supreme Knight, 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 1.9 million members. Before his election in 2000, Anderson served as assistant supreme secretary and supreme secretary for the Knights of Columbus. Prior to that, he served for 10 years as the vice president for public policy in the Washington, D.C. office of the Knights of Columbus.

Pontifical Honors

Anderson is a Knight of St. Gregory the Great, a Knight Grand Cross of St. Sylvester, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre.

Awards

Anderson was named one of the "100 Most Influential in Business Ethics" in 2014 and 2015 by Ethisphere. He was awarded the Order of Merit from the government of Poland and the Evangelium Vitae Medal from the University of Notre Dame in 2015. He has received the Patronal Medal of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for his "distinguished service in the advancement of Marian devotion;" the Archdiocese of Denver's Imago Dei Award; the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty's Canterbury Medal; the Path to Peace Foundation's Servant of Peace Award; the Pontifical North American College's Rector's Award; the Sisters of Life John Cardinal O'Connor Award, and the Gold Palm of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

Collaboration with the Vatican

In 1998, Pope John Paul II appointed Anderson to the Pontifical Academy for Life and in 2002 to the Pontifical Council for the Laity. In 2003 he was named a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI named Anderson as a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family and as a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. In 2009, Pope Benedict appointed Anderson to a five-year term on the board of supervisors of the Institute for Works of Religion, also known as the Vatican Bank.
In 1994, he was a member of the Vatican delegation for the Fifteenth Meeting of the International Catholic Jewish Liaison Committee held in Jerusalem.

''New York Times'' bestselling author

Anderson's 2008 New York Times bestseller, A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World, was published by HarperOne and Beyond a House Divided: The Moral Consensus Ignored by Washington, Wall Street and the Media. He is the co-author with Father José Granados Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II's Theology of the Body and Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love with Eduardo Chávez Sánchez, and is the co-editor with Livio Melina of The Way of Love: Reflections on Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical Deus Caritas Est. His books have been published in French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Korean.

Personal life

Anderson and his wife Dorian are the parents of five children.