THE PRESIDENT
HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL GIANFRANCO RAVASI
Cardinal, P re sident of the Pontifical Cou ncil f or Culture and of the Pontifical Commissio n
of Sacr ed Ar chaeology.
Born in 1942 at Merat e (Lecco, Italy), he is a n expert on the bible and biblical languag e s,
and before coming to Rome he was Pr ef ect of the Biblioteca-Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in
Milan and tau ght Ol d Testament Exege sis at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy.
He has some 150 volumes published mainly on biblical topics: editions on the Psalms a nd
the Book of Job , t he S ong of Songs and Eccle siasticus. He has also earned popular fame
for his writings B reve storia dell’anima ( Mondadori, 2003), Le sorgenti di Dio (San Pao lo ,
2005), Ritorno all e virtù (Mondadori, 2 00 5) , Le porte del peccato (Mondadori, 2007), 5 00
curiosità della fede (Mondadori, 2009) , Questioni di fede (Mondadori 2010) and Le P aro le
del mattino ( Mondadori 2011). A full bibliogr ap hy of his writings in Italian is given here .
Cardinal Ravasi collaborates with newspa pe rs - for fifteen years he wrote for the d aily
paper A vvenire and currently writes fo r L’O sservatore Romano and Il Sole 24 Ore - a nd
has his own te levi sion activity with the Sun da y programme Le frontiere dello Spirito on the
Italian mainstream Canale 5 .
In 2007 the Universit y of Urbino g ave him the Laurea h. c. in Anthropology a nd
Epistem ology of R eli gions. And in 201 0 he was enrolled as an honorary member of th e
Accademia delle Bel le A rti di Brera and given at the same time the Honoris Causa o f the
Diploma di Secondo Livello in Comun icazion e e Didattica dell’Arte.
Key Texts in English:
The Dicastery:
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