Reception and Dinner following at the

Fort Worth Club with

Anthony R. Picarello, Jr.

Keynote Speaker

Always Truth, Always Freedom:  St. John Paul II and Today’s Crisis of Religious Freedom 

Mr. Picarello is the Executive Director of the St. John Paul II National Shrine and formerly served as General Counsel for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  There is no charge to attend Red Mass, but tickets are required for dinner.  

Ticket prices do not cover the cost of the event, so we gratefully accept donations to underwrite the event. Sponsorships are available for firms and individuals who wish to support the event. The Fort Worth Red Mass is co-sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth and the St. Thomas More Society Fort Worth. 

The Red Mass is an ancient tradition of the Church and Bar and is offered to invoke divine guidance and strength through the coming year. Read more about the history of the Red Mass.

About Anthony R. Picarello

As Executive Director, Anthony R. Picarello oversees the St. John Paul II National Shrine’s development and coordinates relations between the Shrine and the Knights of Columbus headquarters in New Haven.

Prior to his work at the Shrine, Anthony served as Associate General Secretary and General Counsel for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).  As Associate General Secretary, he oversaw the policy and advocacy work of USCCB, and as General Counsel, he led the office that served as in-house counsel to the USCCB and administered the National Diocesan Attorneys Association.  In both roles, Anthony helped to staff and otherwise support various USCCB Committees, including on Child and Youth Protection, on the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, and on Religious Liberty.  In 2009, Anthony was appointed to serve a one-year term on the first White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Anthony previously served at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty for seven years, litigating major religious freedom cases on behalf of people of all faiths, and serving in various leadership roles.  He began his career as a lawyer with a federal district court clerkship, followed by three-and-a-half years at the Washington law firm of Covington and Burling.  He is a member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court and almost all federal Courts of Appeals.  In 2007, Anthony was named to The American Lawyer’s list of the top 50 litigators under age 45.

Anthony earned his law degree at the University of Virginia, where he was Essays Editor of the Virginia Law Review and won the school’s Jessup International Law Moot Court competition.  Before law school, Anthony earned his A.M. in Religious Studies from the University of Chicago, where his thesis focused explored the relationship between the ideas of Bernard Lonergan and John Courtney Murray. Anthony earned his A.B., magna cum laude, in Social Anthropology and Comparative Religion from Harvard University, writing his thesis on the concept of inculturation as it relates to Catholic missions in India.