A Washington DC-based organization promoting religious freedom recently announced that it will honor a former United States Civil Rights Commissioner as the "Defender" of the year during ceremonies that will be held this weekend.
The Religious Freedom Institute (RFI), an organization committed to the "broad acceptance of religious liberty as a fundamental human right," recently announced in its website that it will be holding its Defender of Religious Freedom Award Ceremony on Nov. 13 with former U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Carl Anderson as its 2021 recipient.
The organization declared Anderson as the year's awardee last June due to the many initiatives he has undertaken to help persecuted Christians globally for the last two decades.
"The Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) is delighted to announce Carl A. Anderson as this year's recipient of RFI's Defender of Religious Freedom Award. Mr. Anderson served for 20 years as Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal organization. He has led critically important initiatives to aid persecuted Christians all over the world," the RFI said in a press release date June 18.
The RFI explained that the award is given to anyone or any "person who defends religious freedom for everyone, everywhere from within his or her religious tradition."
Anderson, a Catholic, served in the White House during the administration of former President Ronald Reagan before becoming the head of the Commission on Civil Rights. He then served in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Religious Liberty Commission, among others, before he became the head of the Knights of Columbus.
Accordingly, Anderson launched the Christian Refugee Relief Fund of the Knights of Columbus that helped persecuted Christians in the Middle East after raising $30 million. Anderson's efforts was "instrumental to Congress and the U.S. State Department officially recognizing ISIS's persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East as 'genocide'."
RFI President Tom Farr commended Anderson for his "extraordinary" leadership and efforts in safeguarding the First Amendment. Farr called Anderson a blessing not only to the United States but also to the world.
"Carl Anderson is an extraordinary Catholic leader. Under his stewardship, the Knights of Columbus has become one of America's largest and most effective religious organizations. It has lived its constitutional right of free exercise by molding its members in virtue, by caring for the poor, the sick, and the dying of all faiths and of none, and in conveying the values of Catholicism to the larger culture," Farr said in a statement.
"The Knights of Columbus is a blueprint for what the Founders had in mind when they guaranteed in our First Amendment the right of religious free exercise for all Americans. We are honored to recognize Carl Anderson, and the Knights, for their service to this blessed nation, and to the world," he added.
The RFI also highlighted Anderson's "profound" leadership that has inspired people to fight for religious freedom.
"Mr. Anderson has provided a profoundly important model of leadership for faithful people who seek to practice their religion freely, with love and integrity, in modern society. He has consistently challenged people to take up the cause of religious liberty for everyone. He and the Knights have witnessed to secularists and skeptics the value to them, and to all our citizens, of religion in American public life."
In terms of witnessing, Anderson was given the 2021 Pro-Life Legacy Award during the March for Life last Jan. 29. Anderson is one of the top opposers of using taxpayer money to support abortions in the country and pointed out that majority of Americans do not support it.
"Amidst the harsh political divides in our country, clear bipartisan majorities support abortion restrictions and do not want their tax dollars paying for abortion abroad," Anderson said last February.
