Joan F. Neal, Executive Vice President, U.S. Operations, Catholic Relief Services

         Catholic Relief Services was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States. As Vice President for U.S. Operations, Joan F. Neal is responsible for leadership of CRS’ mission of serving Catholics in the United States as they respond to the Gospel imperative to build a more just world. In this position, Ms. Neal leads the agency’s domestic programs and advocacy aimed at educating and engaging US Catholics in faith-based actions that promote international social justice and solidarity with poor and marginalized people overseas. Currently, under her direction are 6 regional offices located across the country as well as a support staff in Headquarters. Working in partnership with dioceses, parishes, colleges, universities and other Catholic organizations, U.S. Operations builds relationships across borders and provides concrete opportunities for U.S. Catholics to make a positive difference in the world by living as one, human family.

              Prior to joining CRS in September 2002, Ms. Neal was president of her own management consulting firm specializing in strategic planning and leadership development for non-profit organizations. Many of her clients were Catholic agencies, dioceses, organizations and parishes in the Midwest. Ms. Neal also served as Associate Director of Leadership Greater Chicago, a leadership development institute for business, professional, government and non-profit sector executives. Additionally, in her long career as a banker, she held a variety of senior management positions for several large multinational banks.

Ms. Neal has chaired a number of diocesan and national boards and committees. She holds a B.A. in English from Loyola University Chicago, an M.A. in Pastoral Studies and a Certificate in Biblical Spirituality, both from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Cyprian Consiglio, New Calmaldoli Hermitage

        Fr. Cyprian Consiglio is a musician, composer, author, teacher and monk of the Camaldolese Congregation. For 10 years, he lived at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, serving for eight years as liturgist, choir director and teacher. Much of both his music and his teaching revolve around the Universal Call to Contemplation through spirituality and the arts.

              A student of the writings of Bede Griffiths and Abhishiktananda, Cyprian has a great love for comparative religion and he has been to India several times to study and teach. He regularly leads retreats and conferences on meditation, and has done work in interfaith ritual.

Cyprian currently lives in Santa Cruz, California. He spends about half his time at home, and half his time traveling nationally and internationally performing and teaching.

Francis Cardinal George, Archdiocese of Chicago

            His Eminence Francis Eugene Cardinal George, OMI, Ph.D, S.T.D. (born January 16, 1937 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He currently serves as the Archbishop of Chicago and was elevated to Cardinal by Pope John Paul II. The Cardinal is the recently elected President of the conference of American bishops, and is in charge of the second largest U.S. diocese—in terms of Catholic population—after Los Angeles. He had once served as prior provincial, or head, of the American province of his order; before that, he taught at some noted American Catholic seminaries.

              Father George's religious order sent him to Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. where he earned a master's degree in philosophy in 1965 and where he is now a member of the Board of Trustees. He then attended classes at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana where he obtained a doctorate in American philosophy in 1970. Father George then returned to the University of Ottawa to obtain a master's degree in theology in 1971.

While studying for college, Father George at the same time taught philosophy at Oblate Seminary in Pass Christian, Mississippi from 1964 to 1969, at Tulane in 1968 and at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska from 1969 to 1973.

Upon his departure from Creighton, Father George served as Provincial Superior of the Midwestern Province for the Oblates in St. Paul, Minnesota for a year. He was then elected Vicar General of the Oblates and served in Rome through 1986. It was in Rome that Father George obtained his Doctorate in Sacred Theology in ecclesiology from the Pontifical Urban University in 1988.