Architect of Vatican’s New Financial Transparency Policy to Speak at Communion Breakfast for Business Leaders at Fairfield University | Press Releases

9 a.m. Mass in Egan Chapel, followed by breakfast, featuring talk by highest ranking lay member of Pope Francis’ ad-hoc cabinet and Leadership Awards Ceremony.

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (October 21, 2015) — Joseph F. X. Zahra , Vice Coordinator of the newly established Council for the Economy of The Holy See and the highest ranking lay member of Pope Francis’ ad-hoc cabinet, will be the featured speaker at the Ninth Annual Communion Breakfast for Business Leaders on Sunday, November 8 , 2015, at Fairfield University.

The annual breakfast is sponsored by Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice (CAPP) of Fairfield County and Fairfield University’s Center for Faith and Public Life.

The morning will begin at 9 a.m. at the University’s Egan Chapel of St. Ignatius Loyola with the con-celebration of Mass by the Most Rev. Frank J. Caggiano, Bishop of Bridgeport, and Rev. Rick Ryscavage, S.J., Founding Director of the Center for Faith and Public Life at Fairfield University. The breakfast and Joseph Zahra’s talk will be held in the nearby Oak Room of the Barone Campus Center immediately following the Mass.

This year’s CAPP Business Leadership Award will be presented to Brian E. Moran Esq. of New Canaan, Conn., for his philanthropic work as founder of the Success Foundation Inc., and his efforts on behalf of the Malta Justice Initiative, which advocates for criminal justice reform. He is a member of St. Aloysius Church in New Canaan.

Joseph F. X. Zahra , whose talk is entitled “Inside the Financial and Administrative Changes at the Vatican: What Pope Francis Wants and Why He is Doing It,” is the former head of Bank of Valletta and a renowned economist who sits on numerous major corporate boards and regularly lectures around the world.

The Council for the Economy of The Holy See, charged with financial oversight of all Vatican-related entities — including the Roman Curia — is the most powerful of three new bodies created by Pope Francis to ensure accountability and transparency in the management of the Vatican’s financial affairs.

As the most senior lay person in the Curia, Zahra has been at the heart of Pope Francis’ reform initiatives from the beginning and is uniquely positioned to tell this story.

Noting that the Vatican’s financial reforms are also meant to provide dioceses around the world with a model they can themselves adopt, Zahra said that “what lies at the heart of Pope Francis’ financial and administrative reorganization of the Vatican is his wish to ensure transparency, simplicity and the efficient use of resources.”

These reforms, Zahra added, “are not an end in themselves, but are designed to free up assets to finance the Church’s mission of evangelization—particularly programs that help the poor and the marginalized” with both pastoral and practical care.

Brian E. Moran, Esq., who is being recognized with the CAPP Business Leader Award for his philanthropic work, founded the Success Foundation Inc. in 2003. For five years, SUCCESS (Students Undertaking College-Career Enhancing Study Skills) ran an intensive three-week summer study program at Sacred Heart University for low-income ninth graders with college potential, serving more than 360 students. The program was awarded a Gold CQIA Innovation Prize by the Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnership Inc. in 2006.

More recently, Moran has worked on behalf of the Malta Justice Initiative, which advocates for criminal justice reform to “right-size” prisons and help ex-offenders successfully re-integrate into their communities. In 2014, Mr. Moran wrote The Justice Imperative: How Hyper-Incarceration Has Hijacked the American Dream (Significance Press). The book recently received the Bridgeport Re-Entry Collaborative’s Urdang–Torres Community Impact Award and an Honorable Mention in Top Ten Black Books of 2014.

Moran, who is a partner and business litigator in the Stamford law office of Robinson & Cole LLP, is a member of the Board of the Inner City Foundation, former Chairman of the United Way of New Canaan, and former board member of the New Canaan Community Foundation. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Richmond School of Law.

Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice (CAPP) is a lay-led, Vatican based organization founded by Blessed John Paul II in 1993 whose mission is to implement Catholic Social Teaching —the Church’s social doctrine—through lay Catholic business, academic and professional leaders. Robert Nalewajek, of Greenwich, Conn., is serving as CAPP President. Its board is made up of business leaders throughout Fairfield County. For more information, visit www.capp-usa.com. Fairfield University’s Center for Faith and Public Life, anchored in Jesuit tradition and Catholic Social Teaching, is committed to advancing the Common Good by improving the social conditions to allow for the full flourishing of individuals and society. Through multi-disciplinary academic research, engaged teaching, events, publications, and other initiatives the Center seeks to: prepare students to be global citizens, generate research-based solutions for current social problems - local, national, and global, and provide a public forum for engaging issues where faith and public life intersect.

Seating is limited. Tickets are $30 and sponsorship opportunities are available. For more information, contact Michelle Ross at 203-254-4000, ext. 3415, or mross@fairfield.edu, or visit: http://www.fairfield.edu/communionbreakfast .