Cardinal Versaldi will bring greetings from Pope Francis to thousands of Catholic school educators and leaders gathered in Cincinnati, OH.
The National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) joyfully announces that the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, His Eminence Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, has accepted an invitation to attend the NCEA 2018 Convention & Expo in Cincinnati, OH.
We are honored that His Eminence Cardinal Versaldi will attend the 2018 Convention & Expo,” said NCEA President/CEO Dr. Thomas Burnford. “Thousands of our members will have this great opportunity to hear the greetings and blessings Cardinal Versaldi will carry from the Holy See.
Cardinal Versaldi said, “I am happy to join NCEA and thousands of Catholic school educators, especially to encourage the missionary turning point requested by His Holiness Pope Francis also in the field of education in schools.
Cardinal Versaldi will lead the opening Mass on April 3. He heads one of the major departments in the Roman Curia, divided into two main sections. The first section oversees about 1,350 Catholic universities and institutions of higher education in the world today, and nearly 700 ecclesiastical institutions, of which 300 are ecclesiastical faculties. The second section oversees all 139,000 Catholic schools with 53,316,000 Catholic school students and educational institutes that are dependent on ecclesiastical authorities.
Cardinal Versaldi was born in Villarboit, the province of Vercelli, northern Italy. After entering the local seminary there, he was ordained in 1967. He then did pastoral work before being sent to Rome to study at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University, where he obtained a degree in psychology and a doctorate in Canon Law. He returned to Vercelli where he set up a diocesan family counselling center, promoted the family apostolate and served as a parish priest.
While still working in the Archdiocese of Vercelli, in 1980 he was invited to teach Canon Law and psychology at the Gregorian University. Once back in the eternal city, he established a relationship with the Roman Rota that lasted many years and eventually led to his appointment as a member of the Supreme Council of the Apostolic Signatura (the Vatican’s Supreme Tribunal) in 2007.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Versaldi as bishop of the Archdiocese of Vercelli 2007, where he had been vicar-general since 1994. In September 2011 the His Holiness Pope Benedict appointed him as President of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, and appointed him cardinal at the consistory in 2012. Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Versaldi to Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education in 2015.
More information on NCEA 2018 Convention & Expo is available online.
