Hackett, Kenneth Francis, 1947-

Kenneth Francis Hackett (born January 27, 1947) was the United States Ambassador to the Holy See from August 2013 until January 2017. He was previously president of Catholic Relief Services.

After earning a B.S. in Business Administration at Boston College in 1968. In his senior year, he signed up for the Peace Corps, thinking it would be “an interesting thing to do.” Assigned to rural Ghana, he worked in an agricultural cooperative and saw “the actual impact of American food aid on the health and well-being of very poor kids in a very isolated part of a West African country,” which fueled his intent to spend his career on international aid and development work.

After finishing with the Peace Corps, Hackett joined Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in 1972. Commencing his career in Sierra Leone, Hackett managed a nationwide leprosy program and a maternal and child health program. Later postings took him to Africa and Asia, as well as to CRS headquarters in Baltimore. As regional director for Africa, he managed the agency’s response to the Ethiopian famine of 1984-1985, and supervised CRS operations in East Africa during the crisis in Somalia in the 1990s.

Hackett was named executive director of CRS in July 1993, and was appointed president in 2003. During his tenure, he started a division focusing on outreach to Catholic dioceses, parishes, organizations, and colleges, and laypeople were first appointed to the CRS board of directors. The organization’s budget—which despite the word “Catholic” comes not from the Church but from governments and private donors—nearly doubled under Hackett, who retired in December 2011.

Hackett has served as North America president of Caritas Internationalis, a Catholic Church relief ornaaization, and has served on the boards of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (1996 to 2011); the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration; the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Policy; and the Africa Society. He is also a member of Legatus, an organization of Catholic business leaders. From 2004 to 2009, Hackett was on the board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

He was nominated to the post as Ambassador to the Holy See by President Barack Obama in June 2013 and confirmed by the Senate on August 1, 2013. He presented his Letters of Credence to Pope Francis on October 21, 2013. In March 2016 he was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX , the highest Papal Award given to lay men and women. He took leave as Ambassador to the Holy See on 16 January 2017.

Hackett received numerous honorary doctorates, nineteen, from American Catholic universities. University of Notre Dame in 2007 awarded him the Laetare Medal in 2012. He was also awarded the Pontifical Equestrian Order of the Knight of St. Gregory, at the rank of Knight Commander. In 2005 he was appointed to the Board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation where he served until 2009.

Hackett lives in Columbia, Maryland. He and his wife, Joan, have two children.