November 28, 2018

J. Christopher Giancarlo to Visit Catholic University

Chairman Christopher Giancarlo, head of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), will address the Busch School of Business on Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 11:30 a.m. in Father O’Connell Hall’s Heritage Hall at Catholic University.

As head of the world's only derivatives-specific regulatory agency, Chairman Giancarlo will discuss a Vatican document that lays out the ethical foundations to govern economic and financial systems.

Earlier this year, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development at the Vatican released “‘Oeconomicae et pucuniariae quaestiones,’ Considerations for an ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system.”

Giancarlo and CFTC Chief Economist Bruce Tuckman responded to Oeconomicae et pucuniariae quaestiones by writing a statement that defends derivatives.

At the lecture at Catholic University, Giancarlo will discuss the main premise of the Vatican document, which is that finance — when focused on the totality of the human person — can be a force for good; and he will elaborate on his argument for derivatives. Following the lecture, the chairman will take questions from faculty and students of the University.

This is the first event in a planned series on Finance in Light of Catholic Social Doctrine hosted by the Busch School of Business The purpose of the series is to answer Pope Francis’ call on business schools to “both foresee and provide, as a fundamental and not merely supplementary element of their curricula of studies, a formational dimension that educates the students to understand economics and finance in the light of a vision of the totality of the human person and avoids a reductionism that sees only some dimension of the person.”

MEDIA: To attend this event, members of the media MUST contact the Office of Marketing and Communications at communications@cua.edu or 202-319-5600. The Chairman will not take questions from reporters during the lecture, but time will be set aside after the event for the media. Reporters will be accommodated on a first come, first served basis, so please RSVP as soon as possible.