Austin Ruse is an activist, journalist and author. He has lectured all over the world and given hundreds of interviews on radio, podcast, and television. Austin’s books include Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point us to Christ; Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data; The Catholic Case for Trump and Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic.
He spent many years in the New York magazine world, working at senior levels at Fortune, Forbes, The Atlantic Monthly, even Rolling Stone. After a religious and political conversion, Austin left that world and began volunteering his time with a Catholic priest in New York City, waiting for a chance to combine religion and politics in his professional life.
That chance came in the summer of 1997 when he met a Canadian team who had raised money to open a pro-life lobbying group at the UN. Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) was born. Austin was one of the first employees and has held the title of President since 2000.
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, 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, Touchstone, as well as newspapers around the world. He is also a biweekly columnist for TheCatholicThing.org.
Austin is a founder of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
In recognition of Ruse’s commitment and leadership in the effort to advance the sanctity of life he was awarded The Henry Hyde Life Leadership Award in 2010 by SpeakOut Illinois. He is also a recipient of the Defender of Life Award presented by Students for Life of America.
Mr. Ruse’s extraordinary leadership has been recognized by Legatus as a recipient of the John Cardinal O’Connor Award. Previous recipients include President George W. Bush and Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King.
He holds undergraduate degrees in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Missouri, and an Honorary Doctorate from Franciscan University of Steubenville. Austin is a member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, and the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.
Mr. Ruse is married to the former Cathleen Cleaver, who is senior legal advisor to the Family Research Council. They have two daughters, Lucy and Gigi.