Meet the new members of Legatus’ Board of Governors

Legatus’ Board of Governors welcomed one new member at its Feb. 4 meeting just prior to the Annual Summit in Dana Point, Calif. The board also welcomed two previously elected members — Bishop Sam Jacobs and Tom Peterson — to their first board meeting.

Charles S. LiMandri, who was just elected to Legatus’ governing board, is the prominent San Diego attorney who was instrumental in protecting traditional marriage in California in 2008 with the passage of Prop 8. He was the lead counsel in the highly successful Mt. Soledad Cross case, as well as the trial attorney for the four Catholic firefighters who successfully sued the City of San Diego for forcing them to participate in a gay pride parade.

LiMandri is a member of the Religious Liberty Committee of the California Conference of Catholic Bishops and Legatus’ San Diego Chapter. He is the West Coast Regional Director for the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm. An author and lecturer, LiMandri received Legatus’ Ambassador of the Year Award in 2005 for his work in defending traditional marriage.

Bishop Sam Jacobs, of the Houma-Thibodaux diocese, was appointed Legatus’ fifth international chaplain in 2009. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1964 and appointed bishop of the Alexandria diocese in 1989. He was named the third bishop of Houma-Thibodaux in 2003. He has served on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committees for evangelization; laity, marriage, family life and youth; and evangelization and catechesis.

Tom Peterson, who was elected to Legatus’ board of governors in 2009, was officially inducted at the Feb. 4 meeting.While on a retreat in 1997, he had a profound reversion experience in his Catholic faith. Soon afterward, Peterson founded Catholics Come Home and VirtueMedia, educational not-for-profit apostolates dedicated to promoting Catholic evangelization and the sanctity of human life. Peterson received Legatus’ Bowie Kuhn Special Award for Evangelization in 2008.