2007 Speaker Profiles

Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley

Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley was appointed Archbishop of Boston July 1, 2003 and installed as Archbishop on July 30, 2003.  He was nominated a Cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI on February 22, 2006 and elevated in a Consistory on March 24, 2006.

Seán Patrick O'Malley was born June 29, 1944, in Lakewood, Ohio. He attended St. Fidelis Seminary, Butler, Pennsylvania, and Capuchin College and the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. He holds an advanced degree in religious education, and speaks Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German.

He was professed as a member of the St. Augustine province of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, July 14, 1968, and was ordained to the priesthood on August 29, 1970.

Archbishop-elect O'Malley was director of the Apostolate for the Spanish Speaking in the Archdiocese of Washington for 14 years when he was named Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in 1984. He became Bishop of St. Thomas on October 16, 1985.

He was then appointed by Pope John Paul II as Bishop of Fall River, Massachusetts, June 16, 1992, and served there until September 2002.

Pope John Paul II later appointed him Bishop of Palm Beach, September 3, 2002, where he served until July 2003 until being appointed our Archbishop.

The Archdiocese of Boston was established in 1808 and made a metropolitan archdiocese in 1875. It is comprised of five counties of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and has a Catholic population of approximately 2.1 million out of a total population of 3.9 million.

Immaculée Ilibagiza

From a country she loved, to the horrors of genocide.
A remarkable and touching journey to understanding and forgiveness.

Immaculée Ilibagiza was born in Rwanda and studied Electronic and Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Rwanda. Her life transformed dramatically in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide when she and seven other women huddled silently together in a cramped bathroom of a local pastor’s house for 91 days! During this horrific ordeal, Immaculée lost most of her family, but she survived to share the story and her miraculous transition into forgiveness and a profound relationship with God.

Four years after the Rwandan tragedy, Immaculée immigrated to the United States and began working for the United Nations in New York City. She’s currently a member of the United Nations Development Program.

Immaculée survived the savage Rwanda genocide and has devoted her life to sharing the importance of the virtues of understanding and forgiveness.

She currently lives in Long Island with her husband, Bryan, and their two children, Nikeisha and Bryan, Jr. Left to Tell, is Immaculée’s first book.

Dana Rosemary Scallon

Dana (pro-nounced "Donna") Rosemary Scallon, formerly Dana (born August 30, 1950), is a successful former singer turned Irish politician.

Scallon was born Rosemary Brown in Derry, Northern Ireland and attended Thornhill College in Derry. In 1970 as a teenager she represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest, singing "All Kinds of Everything" (written by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith), and brought home the country's first victory in the contest. She had some minor hits in the British and Irish music charts subsequently. Always religious, she became more famous for singing religious songs, such as "Totus Tuus", commemorating the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979.

In the 1980s, she moved with her husband, Damien Scallon, and family to the United States, where they were involved with the Christian broadcasting network, EWTN. There she became very popular as a Catholic Christian singer. When not hosting her own radio and television programs, Dana was a popular performer at conferences and in public performances across the United States. She performed “We are One Body” at World Youth Day in Denver in 1993.

She returned to Ireland in 1997 to become a candidate for the office of President of Ireland where, though an independent candidate with no party political organization behind her, she came in a credible third, ahead of the candidate of the mainstream Labour Party. In 1999, again as an independent, she contested and won a seat in the European Parliament representing the Connacht-Ulster European elections constituency.

By February 2005, Dana returned to the world of entertainment when she spent time on Ireland's RTÉ network in a number of programs.  In April of 2006, she debuted a new album. "Totus Tuus" was released on the first anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II and was dedicated to the person he was.

She and her husband, Damien, have four children.

Johnnette Benkovic

Johnnette S. Benkovic is Founder and President of Living His Life Abundantly® International, Inc., a Catholic evangelization apostolate with outreaches in television, radio, print, and internet communications. She is also Founder of Women of Grace®, a Catholic apostolate for Christian women that features a number of outreaches including conferences, curricula, study groups and more.

After years of being a non-practicing Catholic, Johnnette experienced a deep conversion back to her Catholic faith in 1981and discerned a call to share the Gospel message through the media. She has been a consistent presence in Catholic radio since 1987 and in Catholic television since 1988.

Johnnette is Executive Producer of The Abundant Life (seen internationally on EWTN), a television program that discusses contemporary issues from a Catholic perspective. She is also host of Moments of Truth Live, a one hour call-in radio talk show that airs live three times a week. She is heard nationally on AM/FM stations and internationally via short wave radio.

In addition, Johnnette is a popular conference speaker, retreat conductor, and seminar presenter, and has been published in major Catholic magazines. She is the author of several books including Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life (St. Anthony Messenger Press), Grace-Filled Moments (Our Sunday Visitor), Living the Abundant Life: Stories of People Who Know God Personally (St. Anthony Messenger Press), Experience Grace in Abundance: Strategies For Your Spiritual Life (Our Sunday Visitor) and The New Age Counterfeit (Queenship).

Johnnette has been married to her husband, Anthony, since 1973, and is the mother of three adult children.