Father Francesco Giordano

Fr. Francesco Giordano has led Human Life International’s Rome office since July 2015, succeeding the late Monsignor Barreiro. A diocesan priest ordained in 2009, he divides his time between pastoral work and teaching at the Angelicum and the Catholic University of America’s Rome program.

“Being a priest, a spiritual father, is tied to pro-life,” he says. “The root of fatherhood is the desire to pass on what has been given to you. The Faith is perennial—it’s the same truth yesterday, today, and tomorrow. If you don’t want to transmit that life, you inevitably fall into a contraceptive mentality.”

Born in France to a French mother and an Italian-American father, Fr. Giordano spent part of his childhood in South Africa before moving to the United States, where he lived for 18 years. He returned to Rome in 2005.

His pro-life convictions, he explains, took shape early. “It was simply part of my formation in high school—Catholic teaching, the catechesis we had. We came from big families, seven to twelve kids. I always saw a contrast between the Catholic culture my parents passed on and the culture around us.”

Fr. Giordano studied at Vanderbilt University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and became deeply engaged in apologetics. “It was always about defending the Faith,” he recalls. “I read Catholic Answers, watched EWTN, and tried to be counter-cultural in a constructive way.”

After completing a master’s degree at the University of Chicago, he moved to Rome, where he met Msgr. Barreiro. “I appreciated his homilies and often had dinner with him on Sundays. That’s how I first encountered Human Life International and its bioethics library.” In 2015, shortly after finishing his doctorate in systematic theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, he was invited to lead HLI’s Rome office.

“I like to have things substantiated,” Fr. Giordano says. “That’s why apologetics is essential—whether for the Gospel or for the pro-life cause. My pride and joy are the students from my courses. It’s in my heart to be an apologist for the Faith, an apostle of the Faith. You can be bold because it’s the Truth, and you know God the Father has your back.”