Archbishop Celestino Migliore speaks at the United Nations.

Vatican diplomat and UnitedHealth Group CEO to speak at commencement ceremonies

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio (representative of the pope) and a permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, and Dr. William McGuire, chairman and CEO of UnitedHealth Group, will speak and receive honorary degrees at two University of St. Thomas commencement ceremonies this spring.

McGuire will be awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree and speak at graduate commencement exercises. Also honored at the ceremonies will be retired Madison, Wis., Bishop William Bullock, who will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree. The graduate ceremonies begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 21, in O’Shaughnessy Stadium (rain site: Schoenecker Arena). Some 900 graduate students are expected to receive master’s, education specialist and doctoral degrees.

Migliore will be awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree and speak at undergraduate commencement ceremonies at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 21, in O’Shaughnessy Stadium (rain site: Schoenecker Arena). About 900 students will receive bachelor’s degrees at the ceremonies.

About the speakers and honorees:

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, who also teaches ecclesiastical diplomacy at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, was appointed to his present post by the late Pope John Paul II in October 2004. Ordained a priest in 1977, he has a master’s degree in theology from the Center of Theological Studies in Fossano, Italy; he has a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University. After graduating from the Pontifical Academy for Ecclesiastical Diplomacy, he joined the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1980. Since then he has had assignments in Angola, the United States, Egypt, Poland and France.

From December 1995 to October 2002 he was undersecretary of the Section for Relations With States of the Vatican ’s Secretariat of State. In that capacity, he traveled to the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam and North Korea – countries that do not yet have formal diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

Migliore led a delegation from the Holy See to the 2001 United Nations conference on illicit arms trade and has represented the Holy See at many other international gatherings on issues related to the World Trade Organization, the Economic Commission for Europe, the European Union and the Middle East.

William McGuire, M.D., is chairman and CEO of UnitedHealth Group, a health provider network. A physician with specialties in internal and pulmonary medicine, he practiced in Colorado Springs from 1980 to 1985, after which he became president and chief operating officer of Peak Health Plan, also in Colorado. He joined UnitedHealth Group in 1988 and was appointed to his present post in 1991.

He is a member of the National Institutes of Health cancer policy board, and Worth magazine named him one of the 50 best CEOs in America in 2001.

The Most Rev. William Bullock is bishop emeritus of Madison. He was bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison, Wis., from 1993 until his retirement in 2003. He previously served as bishop of Des Moines, Iowa, from 1987 to 1993, and as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis from 1980 to 1987. He was an instructor and then headmaster of St. Thomas Academy from 1957 to 1971 and served as pastor or associate pastor in several Twin Cities parishes. 

Bullock has held leadership positions within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, including service on the Executive Committee of Catholic Relief Services, the Communications Committee, and the Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy.