Religious Organizations, Humanitarian Assistance and the Real Needs of People in Sub-Saharan Africa

About the speaker

Father Michael Anthony Perry, OFM, is a Midwestern American Franciscan friar who from 2013-21, served as General Minister of the Order of Friars Minor, the 120th successor of St. Francis of Assisi.  Currently, he is the Franciscan Scholar in Residence and Director of the Laudato Si’ Center for Integral Ecology at Siena College in New York.

Perry was born into an Irish household in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1954. During his studies at Indiana University, he participated in a Habitat-type experience in West Virginia repairing houses for the economically poor and aged, working together with Franciscans and Methodists. Fr. Perry then entered the Franciscan seminary at Quincy University in Illinois where he studied philosophy and history. While still a theology student, Fr. Perry went to the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire) where he served as pastor, researcher, and professor of mission and cultural studies. He completed his doctorate in social anthropology (religious anthropology) at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Fr. Perry served as a foreign policy adviser to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and later as an adviser on African religion and social policy at Franciscans International, UN/New York. He also served as a policy and programs adviser at Catholic Relief Services.