Ambassador Ken Hackett
photo credit:
Former President & CEO of Catholic Relief Services Olivia Colombo
Boston College alumnus Ken Hackett ’68 worked for 39 years for Catholic Relief Services (CRS), rising through the ranks to become CRS executive director and then CRS president and CEO from 2003–2011. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana, Hackett ran CRS relief and development efforts around the world, including CRS’s response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In 2013, President Obama named him U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, a post he held until 2017. Paulist Press will publish Ambassador Hackett’s The Vatican Code: American Diplomacy in the Time of Francis in September 2022.
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Ambassador Hackett, How did your Jesuit Catholic education contribute to your deciding to dedicate your life to international service? Well, the Jesuits have this phrase, “men and women for others.” In my day, I never heard that phrase, but it was certainly something I witnessed. In fact, I found that the Jesuits were all about others. And they instilled that commitment and passion in so many of their students and followers, urging us to be concerned about others along our journey. Also, I had an uncle who was a Passionist priest, and he would bring home some of his colleagues when I was young, who told stories about the Philippines and other places around the world. And I think that I was captivated by these role models. I didn’t have international experience as many students do now, but I think it was a mix of my education and life experience that influenced my choices. While I interviewed for jobs in business, having studied in what is now the Carroll School of Management, I also learned about the Peace Corps in college, and ultimately decided to accept an assignment with them. I was posted to Ghana for three years and very much enjoyed it, and found that I indeed had a calling to international humanitarian and development work. 12
c21 resources | spring/summer 2022
CNS photo/courtesy Catholic Relief Services
A Conversation with
How did you come to work at Catholic Relief Services? When I came back from Ghana, I thought I might pursue something with the UN or Care or Catholic Relief Services. I decided to pursue my international dreams and headed off to New York for some interviews with these organizations. When I got to Catholic Relief Services, I met some very nice people, and they offered me a job on the spot. They asked if I would like to go back to Africa and I said yes! Thus began a 40-year career. I was sent to Sierra Leone in West Africa first, which was a real deep learning experience, to support a program of maternal and child health, where there were nurses and mobile teams delivering health services around the country. We had a school feeding program for about half the country and a very large leprosy control program. The priest managing the program left after six months and put me in charge. It was really enjoyable and also difficult at the same time. Like many places, the people were wonderful and dedicated, even as the situation in the country was challenging. After three years there, I decided to go to graduate school, so I returned to New York and worked as an assistant for seven years in the CRS Africa regional office, handling all of the develop-
