User:Joe Vella Gauci

JOE VELLA GAUCI was born on 17th January 1964, in Victoria, Gozo, Malta. He studied Philosophy and Theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Victoria, at Fareham Tertiary College and the Open University in the UK. Upon completion of his studies, he was ordained a priest in 1988.

After his ordination, he pursued further studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was awarded a BA (Hons) in Politics and Religious Studies in 1990. This was followed by a Masters in Oriental and African Religious Studies at the same prestigious scholarly institution of SOAS.

In 1991 he joined the editorial board of The Future of the Islamic World a quarterly magazine for strategic and geo-political studies; issues of the human congregation in the Islamic World, which is published by the Islamic World Studies Centre, Malta. In 2006 he was nominated as a member of the preparatory committee for the Arab-European Forum for Development and Dialogue.

Between 1992-1996, he studied for a doctorate at Birmingham University. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies, the thesis being Christian-Muslim relations as a Topos in  Maltese Historiography, Literature and Culture. The publication of the first volume was published by the Arab European Forum in 2010; the second volume will come out in due course; the publication has proved we should not spend our lives lying on a bed of unexamined assumptions.

In 1995, he was chosen as Parochial Vicar of the Cathedral in Victoria, Gozo. On 26th May, 1996, the then Bishop of Gozo, Nicholas Cauchi, appointed him as Archpriest of the Cathedral.

He has travelled extensively in the Arab world and has contributed several articles, including his publication in 1991 entitled: Islamic Law and Mixed Marriages in Malta.

He lectures at the Faculty of Arts - the Department of Oriental Studies - at the University of Malta. He is also engaged as a Distance Learning Tutor for MA Students at the Islamic College for Advanced Studies, University of Middlesex.

In November 2008 he was commissioned by the Islamic College for Advanced Studies (ICAS) to prepare a textbook on Christian Theology as part of the College’s programme MA in Comparative Philosophy: Islam and the West.

On 1st October 2010, Joe Vella Gauci, was appointed Adviser in International Relations and Religious Freedom within the Secretariat of the Commission of the Episcopates of the European Community (COMECE), in Brussels, where he is responsible for analysing, monitoring and contributing to policies planned by the European institutions. He has represented COMECE in several Dialogue Seminars, Workshops and Conferences in Brussels, Vienna (once at the OSCE/ODIHR and on another occasion for the Expert Seminar organised by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner and the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy), Turin, Copenhagen and Rome (OSCE/ODIHR).

Dr Joe Vella Gauci is a versatile and energetic scholar who continues to accumulate academic experiences which have greatly enriched his life.

THINKSITE.EU

The methodical creation of this innovative website (http://www.thinksite.eu) was indeed a valid instrument by which the author projects a host of papers, research and other useful material into the public domain. A much more efficient way of obtaining 100% utility from documents and papers which might otherwise have been left in the dimly lit drawers of libraries and research centres! Dr Vella Gauci’s input is an underlining of his expertise in subjects related to the Mediterranean. His love for his home island of Gozo and, inevitably, for the Maltese islands, is brought to the fore of this project due to the amount of work published which highlights the various social, cultural, linguistic, political and religious aspects of our national traditions and customs. These essays, however, are not left in a vacuum. Constantly mindful of the need to project the uniqueness and importance of the Mediterranean region, other works are included and published on thinksite.eu which touch on a number of related topics. These include historical briefs, Islamic and Christian relationships, philosophical and theological papers, Christology and other data and information. His webpage is indeed highly commendable and the content will continue to grow due to unpublished material that Dr Vella Gauci has access to. One sincerely, hopes that such a fount of information and reference will be used by students and scholars alike, together with the curious and the interested. In order to better one’s evaluation of the intricate synergy of the mentioned pillars of Dr Vella Gauci’s scholastic loves and to be able to recognize fact from fiction on a number of issues related to his chosen fields of scholastic knowledge.

View the following Links for photo gallery

http://www.thinksite.eu/pages/tsdart.asp?id=1101

http://www.fioe.org/ShowNews_en.php?id=52

http://www.thinksite.eu/pages/tsdart.asp?id=1191

http://www.thinksite.eu/pages/tsdart.asp?id=1234

http://ecrgroup.eu/?p=6468

http://www.thinksite.eu/userfiles/file/Christians%20in%20the%20Arab%20World%20-%20One%20Year%20after(1).pdf

https://plus.google.com/photos/104313560089530621737/albums/5759196054319316737?banner=pwa&gpsrc=pwrd1#photos/104313560089530621737/albums/5759196054319316737