Berkley Center

Dr. John Borelli, a historian of religions and theologian, is special assistant for Catholic identity and dialogue to President John J. DeGioia of Georgetown University. Borelli has been at Georgetown University since 2004, where he teaches, manages conferences and events, coordinates dialogues, facilitates workshops, and promotes university relations with offices and institutes of the Holy See.

Fr. Diego Sarrió Cucarella, M.Afr., is president of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI). Fr. Diego is a member of the Society of Missionaries of Africa and has worked in Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia. His research and publications focus on the intellectual history of Muslim-Christian relations.

John J. DeGioia is the forty-eighth president of Georgetown University. For nearly four decades, DeGioia has worked to define and strengthen Georgetown University as a premier institution for education and research. As the first lay president of a Jesuit university he places emphasis on sustaining and strengthening Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity and its responsibility to serve as a voice and an instrument for justice. He has also been an advocate for interreligious dialogue. He continues to teach an Ignatius Seminar each fall, part of a program offering first year students the opportunity to encounter unique courses of study inspired by the Jesuit educational theme of cura personalis (“care for the whole person”). He is a member of the Order of Malta, a lay religious order of the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to serving the sick and the poor. Before becoming president, DeGioia served at Georgetown as senior vice president, responsible for university-wide operations, and dean of student affairs. DeGioia earned his B.A. and Ph.D at Georgetown University.

Cardinal Michael Louis Fitzgerald, M.Afr., is considered one of the Roman Catholic Church’s leading experts on Islam. He was the papal nuncio to Egypt and delegate to the Arab League from 2006 until his retirement in 2012. Previously, he had been president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID). He was ordained bishop in 1991 and archbishop in 2002 upon his appointment as PCID president; he was created cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019.

Jason Welle, OFM, is director of studies and extraordinary professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome. Welle is the co-editor of several recent volumes including the two-volume collection of papers from the Georgetown University conference Vatican II: Remembering the Future – Ecumenical, Interfaith and Secular Explorations of the Council’s Legacy and Promise (2018).

Cindy Wooden is a journalist who has covered the Vatican for three decades and was named Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service (CNS) in 2015. She has covered papal trips all over the world, traveling with St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. She travelled with Pope Francis to the Republic of Iraq in March 2021.