Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald

Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, was born in Walsall, England, in the West Midlands. He trained in Tunisia in the seminary of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Africa, and is one of the Church’s foremost experts in Islam.

He has a doctorate in theology from Rome’s Gregorian University, a degree in Arabic from London University and taught at the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, of which he was the director for many years.

He was appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council in 1987 and became its president in 2002.