Two prominent Catholic leaders will receive honorary doctor of law degrees from Notre Dame at the University’s winter Board of Trustees meeting in Rome on Jan. 27, a University press release stated.
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement and the only female to lead a major Catholic lay movement, will be honored during the academic convocation at Notre Dame’s new center in Rome’s San Giovanni neighborhood, the release stated.
“Though their energy and good works, our honorees personify the fact that God’s love knows no barriers,” University President Fr. John Jenkins said in the release.
Tauran, a native of Bordeaux, France, became a priest in 1969 and went on to work in the Vatican’s diplomatic service in the Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Haiti, Beirut and Damascus, the release stated. After Pope John Paul II elevated him to a cardinal in 2003, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI appointed him president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in 2007.
Tauran voted in the 2005 and 2013 papal conclaves, and he was the speaker who made the formal “Habemus Papam” announcement of Pope Francis’s election to St. Peter’s Square on March 13, 2013, according to the release.
Voce, a native of southern Italy, began to lead the Focolare Movement in 2008, which promotes unity and universal brotherhood in 182 nations, the release stated. She was the first woman to practice law in Rome’s modern judicial system and is a consultor for the Pontifical Councils for the Laity and for Promoting the New Evangelization.
While in Rome, Jenkins and other University officials will meet with Vatican leaders in papal congregational offices and pontifical councils related to Notre Dame’s mission as a leader in Catholic higher education, the release stated. The Board of Trustees will also conduct its regular business meetings in Rome.
