BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Ken Hackett is not joking when he says it is easier for him to list the nations he has not visited rather than ones in which his passport has been stamped.
The man who for 18 years led Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency, will next apply his well-traveled expertise to U.S. relations with the Vatican as ambassador to the Holy See.
On Aug. 1, the Senate confirmed his June 14 nomination to the post by President Barack Obama.
The post had been vacant since November 2012, when Miguel Diaz resigned and left Rome to become a professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio.
"I know so many of the bishops and nuns and priests and deacons and Catholic workers in so many countries around the world," Hackett said in an interview with The Catholic Review, Baltimore's archdiocesan newspaper. He spoke to the paper June 17, in his first interview since the news of his nomination broke. "I hope that is helpful in providing insight to the administration in what is going on in the world."
Hackett went to work for CRS in 1972, and was its president from 1993 to 2011. The agency moved its headquarters in 1989 to Baltimore, where Hackett and his wife, Joan, raised their children.
Their daughter, Jenny, was born in the Philippines, and their son, Michael, in Kenya. The two went to St. Louis School in Clarksville and then graduated from Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville and Loyola Blakefield in Towson, respectively. Jenny works in development for the Archdiocese of Baltimore and Michael is an undergrad at Virginia Commonwealth University in Blacksburg, Va.
The Hacketts are former parishioners of St. Louis, Clarksville, and Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore. He spoke with The Catholic Review from Amelia Island, Fla., where he and his wife recently moved.
He told the Review that he received a call from the White House back in February telling him Obama wanted to nominate him the ambassadorship and asking him if he would be willing to serve.
"I said, that is so exciting, I would be more than willing," he said.
Hackett said that if his nomination were confirmed, he expected to move to Rome in late August.
Asked to compare his previous advocacy for CRS on behalf of the U.S. Catholic bishops to advocating for the people of the United States as ambassador, he said: "I thought about that a lot. There will be times where the position of the (Obama) administration differs, obviously, from the Holy See, but I am going to look for, as many of my predecessors did, those opportunities where we can come together and find strength in collaboration, coincidence of interests."
He added, "There are some powerful connections, that together, will really make a difference."
Hackett said that he feels "Americans are right there" with regard to Pope Francis' focus on "changing the way the world looks at issues of poverty and injustice and so many social issues. ... There is common cause. That makes me excited."
CRS "represented all flavors," Hackett said. "It wasn't one group that had one agenda, or another group that had one agenda. We were about finding those points which were basic to our faith: concern and compassion for the poor, or to put it in more theological terms, the preferential option for the poor. Those elements, of the dignity and sacredness of the individual, those kinds of things, they were critical to us."
He said he hopes his global experience -- from knowing bishops, nuns, priests, deacons and Catholic workers in so many different countries around the world -- is "helpful in providing insight to the (Obama) administration in what is going on in the world."
Hackett said his service in the board of the Millennium Challenge Corp., which was designed by the U.S. to work with some of the poorest countries in the world, has given him "a special perspective" on issues facing those countries face. He said he hopes he can continue to be on the board.
Among the things he looks forward to when he takes up his new duties, he said, is a "the reconnection with so many friends from around the world, where sandals were made out of rubber tires, with people who don't wear Gucci shoes and carry briefcases. These are holy people who are trying their best."
"I missed that in the last year I've been retired (from CRS). You don't see those kind of people anymore, that bishop from Congo who has so many stories to tell at supper, of so much hardship. I want to re-establish those relationships and use them to, basically, improve U.S. policies," Hackett said.
He noted that him being selected the ambassador post didn't come "through any political contributions, but rather because of "the thousands of people who work with Catholic Relief Services and with whom I was associated, those are the people who elevated my stock. ... That's where my appreciation lies."