Reclaiming the Piazza III

LEONARDO FRANCHI is lecturer at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, where he teachers on wide ranges of undergraduate, Masters and Doctoral programmes. He is a member of the Executive of the Association for Catholic Colleges and Institutes of Education (ACISE), the sectorial branch of the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU). Leonardo's primary interests are in Religious Education and teacher formation. He has published on a wide range of topics in education and religion, including Shared Mission: Religious Education in the Catholic Tradition (2017) and Catholic Teacher Preparation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Preparing for Mission (2019, with Richard Rymarz). He is a Trustee of the mentoring charity, Citywise.

RONNIE CONVERY is a journalist and broadcaster who has written for a variety of publications in the UK and Italy. Currently he divides his time between directing communications at the Archdiocese of Glasgow and serving as Italian Honorary Consul in the city. He has a long background in print and TV, a strong presence on social media. He is a founder member of the charity Italian Scotland which aims to promote stronger cultural links between those nations and is a Cavaliere of the Italian Republic. He is Editor of Flourish, the Official Journal of the Archdiocese of Glasgow and Associate Editor of Adamah-an online journal which seeks to promote dialogue in public life.

JACK VALERO is the Press Officer for Opus Dei in Britain. In 2010 he founded Catholic Voices, a project to train ordinary lay people to speak on TV and radio about controversial issues related to the Church, in preparation for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain. The project was a success and has since spread to 20 other countries in Europe and North and South America including Chile, Bolivia, Malta, Ireland, Canada, France and Italy. In 2019 he was Press Officer for the canonisation of Cardinal Newman by Pope Francis in Rome, having done the same task for the beatification of Newman in Birmingham in 2010.