Berkley Center

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi has served the president of the Dicastery for Culture and Education since 2007. Ravasi was born in 1942 in northern Italy and was ordained in 1966. He has extensive education and training in both exegesis and archaeology, and he previously worked at the Ambrosian Library in Milan. Ravasi was named both president of the Pontifical Council for Culture and archbishop in 2007, along with being assigned the presidency of the Pontifical Commission of the Cultural Heritage of the Church and the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology; he was proclaimed a cardinal in 2010. Ravasi established the Courtyard of the Gentiles—an initiative under the Pontifical Council for Culture to foster dialogue between believers and nonbelievers—in 2011, inspired by remarks from Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.