Gianfranco Ravasi was born in Merate, near Lecco, on 18 October 1942, the oldest of three children; his father, an anti-fascist treasury agent, deserted the army in Sicily and took eighteen months to walk home — an absence Ravasi says shaped his lifelong search “for something permanent.” He planned to teach Greek and Latin classics before choosing the priesthood; ordained for Milan on 28 June 1966 by Cardinal Colombo, he studied at the Gregorian and the Biblical Institute, spending summers on archaeological digs in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey with Kathleen Kenyon and Roland de Vaux.
He taught Old Testament exegesis in Milan and from 1989 to 2007 was prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan's great library, becoming a fixture of Italian intellectual life and a television presence. On 3 September 2007 Benedict XVI appointed him titular Archbishop of Villamagna and president of the Pontifical Council for Culture (consecrated by the Pope on 29 September), and created him a cardinal on 20 November 2010, with the deaconry of San Giorgio in Velabro. His signature initiative was the Courtyard of the Gentiles (2011), a structured dialogue between believers and non-believers. He led the culture council until its absorption into the new Dicastery for Culture and Education in June 2022. His motto is Praedica Verbum — “preach the Word.”
Consequential Quotes
My search has always been for something permanent, for what is behind the transitory, the contingent. I'm fighting loss and death, which probably relates to the absence of my father in my first years.
Major Works & Initiatives
President of the Pontifical Council for Culture
Fifteen years as the Vatican's culture chief.
The Courtyard of the Gentiles
His flagship dialogue between believers and non-believers.
Prefect of the Ambrosian Library
Eighteen years at Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana.
Controversies
On the record
No significant public controversies reported.