Flaminia Giovanelli, under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the highest-ranking laywoman in the Roman Curia, will deliver the commencement address during the 46th commencement exercises at 11 a.m., Saturday, May 17, on the campus mall between McShea student center and Trexler Library. (In case of rain, commencement will be held in Billera Hall.)
Click here for Commencement Weekend details.
During the ceremony, DeSales President Fr. Bernard O’Connor, OSFS, will confer degrees upon 440 graduating students, including traditional undergraduates, graduate students, and ACCESS students. Also, Giovanelli will be awarded an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.
Since 1974, Giovanelli has worked at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, first as an official, and then, since 1993, as Aiutante di studio, engaging in the areas of development, poverty, and labor in the context of the social doctrine of the Church. From 2006 until 2013, she was a member of the Joint Working Group, the contact group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches.
Giovanelli has organized various conferences on behalf of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, including: The Second World Congress of Ecclesial Organizations Working for Justice and Peace (November 2007); the seminar entitled Politics: a demanding form of charity (June 2008); the seminar of Experts before the Doha Conference on Financing for Development (November 2008); and Life, Family, and Development: The Role of Women in the Promotion of Human Rights (March 2009).
Giovanelli has been published in La Società, the bulletin of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory on the Social Doctrine of the Church, as well as in L’ Osservatore Romano and in other scientific journals devoted to topics on the Social Doctrine of the Church.
She has presented around the world and has most recently published works of short stories for children entitled La stella racconta. Una storia d’amore, in rima e colore (Edizioni Cantagalli, 2009), and many others, all illustrated by the artist Paola Bevicini.
Giovanelli attended l’Ecole Européenne de Bruxelles and earned a degree in political science from the Università degli Studi of Rome. Subsequently, she earned degrees in library science from the School of Library Science in the Vatican and in religious studies from the Gregorian Pontifical University.
She is fluent in Italian, French, Spanish, English.