Participants

Vittorio Alberti is Professor and Researcher in Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, where he earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy. He is the Director of the Scientific Journal Online. Alberti is also a professional journalist who has collaborated with and written for research institutions and news outlets, particularly on foreign policy.

Sr. Marie-Bernard Alima Mbalula is Secretary of the Commission épiscopale justice et la paix of the Conférence Episcopale Nationale du Congo and of the Association des Conférences Episcopales de l’Afrique Centrale (ACEAC). Her many responsibilities have included urging greater international action to address widespread rape in the DRC. She is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Kalemie.

Maria Cristina dos Anjos is Secretary General of Cáritas Brasileira. The many programs she oversees for Cáritas Brasileira include initiatives on urban poverty, the environment, youth education and mobilization, and protecting the right to food. Maria is also a key faith-based local actor for the World Summit Rio +20 on sustainable development in June 2012.

R. Scott Appleby is Professor of History and John M. Regan Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. He also directs Contending Modernities, a project on the interaction among Catholic, Muslim, and secular forces in the modern world. His many books include The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation (2000). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ekeno Augostine, S.J., a Jesuit scholastic from Kenya, is a masters student in international peace studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College, Ireland. His B.A. is from the University of Zimbabwe.

Msgr. Ettore Balestrero is the Undersecretary for Relations with States, the deputy to the Secretary, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti. After entering the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1996, he served in Korea, Mongolia and the Netherlands. Since 2001, he has served in the Secretariat of State.

Thomas Bamat is Senior Advisor on Justice and Peacebuilding for Catholic Relief Services. Prior to joining CRS he directed the Center for Mission Research and Study as well as the Peacebuilding Education Unit at Maryknoll in New York. He is co-editor of Pursuing Just Peace (2008) and Artisans of Peace: Grassroots Peacemaking Among Christian Communities (2003).

Paola Bernardini recently received a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, where she was the Russell Berrie Fellow in Interreligious Studies at the John Paul II Center for Interreligious Dialogue.

Bishop Giorgio Bertin is Bishop of Djibouti and Apostolic Administrator of Mogadishu. He serves as president of Caritas Somalia and Caritas Djibouti. During Somalia's 21 years without law and order, or a functioning government, he has witnessed 15 failed peace processes. During the years after Mogadishu Cathedral was blown up and his predecessor killed, he was a refugee in Kenya.

Archbishop Charles Bo of Yangon, Myanmar, is Secretary General and Treasurer of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Myanmar. He is also Chairman of the Office of Human Development of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, and is a member of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue.

Fr. Pierre Cibambo is the Africa Regional Desk Officer and International Liaison at Caritas Internationalis in Rome, prior to which he headed the DR Congo Caritas. He has recently worked with the bishops responsible for Caritas in Africa on restructuring the organization in order to improve poverty alleviation programs. In May 2012, he was appointed Ecclesiastical Assistant by the Holy See for CI. Lauren Clark is an intern at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Fr. Michael Czerny, S.J., is in the President’s Office at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. A Canadian Jesuit based in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2002, he founded the African Jesuit AIDS Network as a way to help Jesuits in Africa work on the problem of HIV and AIDS.

Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, Ph.D., JCL, is the Magister Theologiae at the faculty of theology at the Universität Innsbruck, Austria. He has served as Secretary of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on June 22, 2010. He was appointed Under-Secretary on June 21, 2004. He began work at the Council in 1996.

Marie Dennis is the first lay Co-President of Pax Christi International. She was Director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns in Washington, D.C. from 1989 until 2012. She is co-author or author of six books, including St. Francis and the Foolishness of God, Like Grains of Wheat and Oscar Romero: Reflections on His Life and Writings. She is a mother of six and a secular Franciscan.

Elena Dini received her master’s in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS University in London. She has working experience in the field of communications, particularly those in religious communities.

Joseph Cornelius Donnelly is the Permanent Delegate to the UN for Caritas Internationalis. He serves as a leading NGO spokesman on eradication of poverty, hunger, violence and weapons of war, and is a member of the Security Council Working Group. Prior to joining CI, he worked in the Middle East for CNEWA, the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and CRS.

Flaminia Giovanelli is Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Dr. Giovanelli is currently researching how to disseminate Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. She is also collecting documents from the past 40 years on the Church’s work for peace. Since 2006, she has served on the Joint Working Group of the Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches.

Fr. William R. Headley, C.S.Sp., is Founding Dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. He started Duquesne University’s graduate program in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies and was Counselor to the President at Catholic Relief Services and coordinated the Agency’s worldwide peacebuilding efforts.

Msgr. Héctor Fabio Henao Gaviria is Director of the Secretariado Nacional de Pastoral Social/Cáritas Colombiana of the Conferencia Episcopal de Colombia. He is also Coordinator for Human Rights, Justice and Peace for CELAM and is on Caritas Internationalis’ Representative Council. He is a long-time leader in the Church’s work on relief and development issues, human rights, and peace in Colombia.

Sr. Filo Hirota, M.M.B., is the international relations officer for the Catholic Council for Justice and Peace of the Episcopal Conference of Japan and a member of the Executive Committee of Pax Christi International. She participates in the inter-congregational Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) network and is in charge of the JPIC Peace Initiative ad-hoc working group.

Marco Impagliazzo is Professor of Contemporary History at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, where he is vice chancellor. Since 2003, he has been President of the Comunità di Sant'Egidio and since 2009 has been a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture. In March 2012, he received the Peace Prize Ducci for the promotion of dialogue between religions and cultures.

Heinz-Gerhard Justenhoven has been Director of the Institut für Theologie und Frieden in Hamburg since 1995, and teaches political philosophy at Universität Freiburg. With a doctorate in social ethics, he has written on peace ethics and political philosophy, including a second thesis on ethics and international law (2006) and co-editing From Just War to Modern Peace Ethics (2012).

Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto has worked for the Federal Government of Nigeria as Secretary of the National Political Reform Conference and has been chairman of the Ogoni-Shell Reconciliation Commission since 2005. Past appointments include consultant to the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.

Sister Mary Tarcisia Lakot is on the staff of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) in northern Uganda, which has played a key role in the peace process and in promoting reconciliation. She was one of the representatives for ARLPI on the Moral Imagination Pilot Project, which is part of the United Religions Initiative.

Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J., of Cagayan de Oro, the Philippines, has been active in the Bishops-Ulama Conference, which was established to support the peace process in Mindanao. He has been Chairman of the Inter-religious Dialogue Commission and Vice-President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, and member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Maryann Cusimano Love is Associate Professor of International Politics at The Catholic University of America. Her books include Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda (2010), and Morality Matters: Ethics and the War on Terrorism (forthcoming). She is a board member for Jesuit Refugee Services USA and an advisor to the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ International Policy Committee.

Jörg Lüer has been Deputy Secretary General heading the Deutsche Kommission Justitia et Pax since 2001. He has also served as Secretary General of the Conference of the European Justice and Peace Commissions (2005-2008) and, since 2007, Secretary of the Contact group of the Polish and the German Bishops Conference and a Member of the Board of the Maximilian-Kolbe-Foundation.

Hana Nassif is General Secretary of the Association Justice et Miséricorde in Lebanon. Ms. Nassif is a teacher and researcher at the St. Joseph Institute of Beirut and at the Institute of Health and Social Security Management. She is active in the Regional Consultation of Pax Christi International (PCI) for the Middle East and is on PCI’s Executive Committee.

Jozef Niewiadomski is Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Institut Für Systematische Theologie, Universität Innsbruck. He is also a member of the European Academy of Science and Arts. In 2002, he received the Skowyra Prize of the Catholic University in Lublin for extraordinary scientific achievements.

Fr. Gearóid Francisco Ó Conaire, O.F.M., has been General Secretary of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission of the Union of Major Superiors/ International Union of Major Superiors since 2007. From 1998 to 2003, he helped coordinate JPIC international ministries for the OFM Franciscans in Rome. He ministered in El Salvador from 1984 to 1998.

Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu, Uganda, is Chairman of the Uganda Episcopal Conference. He also served as Chairman of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) from 2002-2010. His efforts to build a bridge between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda contributed to the Juba Peace Process, in which he and others from ARLPI acted as official observers.

Daniel Philpott is Associate Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (2012). He has traveled extensively to promote reconciliation in war-torn areas of the globe, including Kashmir and, under the auspices of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Gerard Powers is Director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame and Coordinator of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network. From 1998- 2004, he was Director of International Justice and Peace at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He co-edited Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Praxis (2010) and Strategies of Peace (2010).

Hippolyt Pul is the coordinator for Peacebuilding in Africa at the Catholic Relief Services. He has worked in various positions with the Catholic Relief Services since 1990, including as the deputy regional director for program quality for Catholic Relief Services in West Africa.

Adriano Roccucci is Professor of Contemporary History at Roma 3 University and Secretary General of the Comunità di Sant'Egidio. Professor Roccucci was appointed an expert historian in the Vatican Commission for New Martyrs, founded by Pope John Paul II within the Committee for the Great Jubilee in 2000 to collect historical documentation concerning the many witnesses to the faith in the 20th century.

Michel Roy was appointed Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis at the 19th General Assembly in 2011. He had previously served for more than 30 years at Secours Catholique, most recently as the director of the international advocacy department, where he specialized in global governance, financing for development, promotion of peace and human rights, corporate social and environmental responsibility, and international migration.

Fr. Nithiya Sagayam, O.F.M. Cap., is Executive Secretary of the Office of Human Development of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. He was previously the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the bishops’ conference of India, International Secretary of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the Capuchin Order, and dean of a seminary philosophy faculty.

Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., is Bernardin Center Vatican II Professor of Theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A specialist in inculturation and world mission, his 17 books include (co- editor) Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Praxis (2010); The Ministry of Reconciliation (1998); and The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local (1997).

Fr. George Sigamoney is National Director of Caritas Sri Lanka. He is also the Director of the National Commission for Migration, where he is in charge of programs that fight human trafficking, prevent child labor, help exploited tea plantation workers, and address the problems faced by poverty-stricken Sri Lankans who leave the country to work. He is on Caritas Internationalis’ Representative Council.

Archbishop Marcel Utembi Tapa of Kisangani, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is Chairman of the Regional Committee of Religious Leaders from the LRA affected areas, which has urged governments to pursue peace talks with the LRA. He has served as Bishop of Mahagi-Nioka, as spiritual animator of the clergy, professor and director of the minor seminary, parish priest and diocesan chancellor.

Cardinal Peter Turkson is President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Prior to his appointment to the Pontifical Council in 2009, he was Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana (1993-2009). His many appointments include serving as President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (1997- 2005), treasurer of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), and General Relator of the 2nd Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops (2009).

Laura Vargas is Adjunct Executive Secretary of the Comisión Episcopal de Acción Social, Conferencia Episcopal Peruana. She has served as Vice President of Pax Christi International, and on the advisory committees on human rights and church social teaching for CELAM.

Laura Villanueva is a peace practitioner and freelance researcher on conflict prevention. In 2008, she joined Peace Field Japan, which nurtures mutual understanding among Israeli, Japanese and Palestinian adolescent girls.