Austin Ruse has headed the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) since the summer of 1997. Ruse has held the title of President since 2000. Ruse and his team have participated in every major UN social policy negotiation since 1997 including the multi-year negotiations that created the International Criminal Court. He has briefed members of the U.S. House and Senate on U.N. matters, as well as briefing White House and National Security Council staff. Ruse has also briefed senior government officials, journalists, and Church and non-governmental leaders from around the world.
He has appeared on a number of national cable network programs discussing UN and Catholic issues, including news programs on CNN, CBS News, MSNBC, and Fox News. Ruse has published in First Things, Washington Times, National Review Online, Weekly Standard, Human Events, and Touchstone, as well as newspapers around the world. Ruse is a biweekly columnist for TheCatholicThing.org and founder of the foreign affairs blog, TheNewSovereigntists.org. He is a former foreign affairs commentator for EWTN‘s weekly news broadcast The World Over hosted by Raymond Arroyo. He lectures widely on U.N. matters, appearing throughout the U.S., also in Canada, Latin America, the Far East and Europe. Ruse is a founder of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Prior to helping to found C-FAM, Ruse spent many years in magazine publishing including Forbes, Fortune, the Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone.
Ruse is a Knight in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Knight in the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and is a founding member of the Diplomatic Society of St. Gabriel. He is also a member of Sons of the American Revolution. He holds undergraduate degrees in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Missouri, and an Honorary Doctorate from Franciscan University of Steubenville.
He is married to the former Cathleen Cleaver, who is senior legal advisor to the Family Research Council. They have two daughters, Lucy and Gigi. They live in the state of Virginia where Ruse’s family first arrived from England in the early 1700’s.