Integritas Vitae Award
The university’s annual Integritas Vitae Award is presented to a local, national, or world leader who has demonstrated the values and philosophy of a Jesuit education – namely moral character, service to others, and unquestionable integrity.
The Integritas Vitae Award is distinctive as Loyola’s recognition of an individual of outstanding character from any walk of life -- with an enhanced focus on a person whose impact is pervasive and whose character should be subject to emulation by students, alumni, and the community. The literal translation of integritas vitae is "a life of integrity."
The 2025 Integritas Vitae Award recipient was John Benedict 'J.B.' Cordaro '63. J.B. is a true example of a leader, embodying the Jesuit principle of being a person with and for others. J.B. has six decades of global problem-solving experience in a wide range of food security initiatives in approximately 50 countries. A significant number of his activities and achievements were Africa-focused with United Nations Organizations, the United States Congress, the private sector, and the Vatican, where he established networks of relationships and partnerships to achieve problem-solving outcomes.
J.B. served as Special Representative for Food Security, Nutrition & Safety with Mars, Incorporated from 2007 to his retirement in 2021. Since his retirement, he continues pro-bono work with the World Food Programme (WFP) on food safety, the Food and Agriculture Organization on food security, and serves as Coordinator for the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC).
J.B. also maintains a portfolio of ongoing activities as a member of the Vatican Leadership Team under the guidance of Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, Archpriest of Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vicar General for the Vatican City State, and president of the Fabric of Saint Peter. His activities include creating Villaggio della Fraternità, a harmonious, interfaith community, on 50 hectares, 5 kilometers from Saint Peter’s Basilica to serve as a convening platform for training African agriculture extension experts to return to Africa and work with local farmers.
Prior to his tenure at Mars, Inc., J.B. served as a senior staff member with the Agency for International Development (USAID), a staff member for Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and Food Program Manager for the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), executive director for Food Safety Council, Inc., and president and CEO for the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN).
J.B. graduated with a Bachelor of Social Sciences from Loyola University New Orleans and a Master of Science from Cornell University in agricultural economics and nutrition policy. He is a native of Louisiana and is the oldest of the 11 children of Joseph and Lucile Cordaro and the grandson of Sicilian immigrants to New Orleans, Giovanni and Benedetta Cordaro.
The 2025 Integritas Vitae Award was presented during the 1912 Society Dinner on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, at the Audubon Tea Room. View photos from the event.
Thank you, President Cole, members of the Loyola Board of Trustees, and Father Dawson.
I humbly and proudly accept Loyola’s 2025 Integritas Vitae Award... on behalf of my family that nurtured me, teachers that schooled me, friends that supported me, and others that mentored my personal development and professional career.
My mother, Lucille, and father, Joseph, made countless sacrifices to raise 11 children and send us to Catholic schools. We began with the Daughters of the Cross nuns and then the Jesuits at St. Johns in Shreveport, and in my case, to Loyola University New Orleans. Throughout these years, our religious life was centered on Holy Trinity Catholic Church to receive the Sacraments, attend Mass, and serve as altar boys.
Liz, my wife and forever partner of 58 years, shares this award. She has tolerated my antics and activities beyond reasonable expectations.
To our three children---Susan, Greg, and Mike, their spouses - Sean and Erica, and two special grandchildren - Dan and Holly —thank you for helping me understand and respond to parenting challenges.
Early in my life, when asked about my ambitions, I replied, depending on the sport season, either that I wanted to play center field for the Yankees or point guard for the Celtics. I did not achieve either!
Garth Brooks reflects my feelings in his song “Thank God for unanswered prayers.”
However, I achieved something far greater with a Hall of Fame family and a six-decades global food security career. I have tried to help vulnerable populations improve their health and well-being in fraternity and solidarity with the teachings of St. Ignatius Loyola.
I am 84 years young... and I know that my life is in extra innings… but I continue to ask “what’s next” or respond “I’ve got this” to new challenges.
My journey has unfolded within three intersecting elements.
- Grandparents who immigrated to America from Sicily
- Catholic upbringing and Jesuit education
- Implementing lessons learned from Jesuit training into my daily personal and professional activities
We called my grandfather Cordaro-- Papa. None of my personal or professional success would have been possible without this courageous, immigrant farmer who left Palermo, Sicily for America.
25-year-old Giovanni Domenico Cordaro disembarked from the S.S. California to room # 219 of the New Orleans Customs House on October 22, 1900.
He was a part of the wave of Italian immigrants that settled in New Orleans. Often referred to as Little Palermo in the early 20th century, some suggested that an area of the French Quarter be designated “The Sicilian Quarter.”
Papa operated a produce stand in the French Market while he waited for his bride-to-be, Benedetta Sunseri, to come to America. They were married in St. Louis Cathedral, began a family, and moved to Shreveport.
Then, with other immigrant friends, they founded Shreveport Macaroni, manufacturing the finest pasta in the South.
It is likely that my grandparents crossed paths in the Sicilian Quarter with another immigrant grandfather who came to New Orleans in 1905 from Messina. He was Pope Leo XIV’s Paternal Grandfather, whose name became John Riggitano Prevost when he applied for USA citizenship in 1920.
While my father was in the Army/Airforce, my early years were spent with my mother and Papa, whose wife, my grandmother, had died.
I learned the role Papa played in my formative years from letters my mother and father wrote during the war. Fortunately, I have even stronger memories as Papa lived until the age of 96, providing years of personal lessons and guidance.
My conversations with Papa instilled lasting insights into character and integrity. We often sat on his front porch, and slowly rocked back and forth in weather-beaten, wooden chairs. He usually sipped a glass of red wine. As we shared either a bowl of sliced apples or pieces of parmigiana cheese, I listened to his warm, soothing, affectionate, Sicilian dialect…that I can still hear.
Papa told me---more than once…when speaking or listening to someone, always look directly at them to show respect… he told me to always remember that my public actions would define my family name to others… and that I must make my word a “bond”, a “trust”, that others could always count on.
Next, my Jesuit education. When I took a summer school class at Tulane, I realized no one else wrote AMDG at the top of their papers.
Although I no longer write AMDG at the top of my papers, I try to fulfill the meaning of our Jesuit motto Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam. AMDG remains my companion and guiding philosophy.
I recall the 20+ hour class schedules needed to fit in Theology, Philosophy, Logic, and Ethics. Debate team activities, campus and local politics, and performance in the thespian society helped overcome my shyness to make me feel secure to speak with confidence in public. Truly, I found my speaking voice at Loyola!
When I graduated in 1963 from Loyola, I could not have imagined that decades later, another young man, whose Italian grandparents had immigrated to Argentina, would be ordained a Jesuit priest in Argentina.
He would retrace his immigrant grandparents' journey by returning to Rome as Cardinal Bergoglio and later be elected Pope---Papa Francesco.
Further, I could not have imagined that his Papacy would provide me the opportunity to bundle Loyola learnings, global food security knowledge, and experiences to help implement the words in his encyclical — Fratelli Tutti.
This leads to my professional experience. During six decades of global food security experience, I have worked in approximately 50 countries on scores of programs. I will highlight the Vatican initiative that I alluded to which is a cornerstone to my award.
Just when I thought I had received all the Jesuit training that I needed, Pope Francis issued Fratelli Tutti.
Subsequently I was asked to coordinate creation of Villaggio della Fraternità to bring to life the words of this encyclical as a member of the Vatican Leadership Team under the guidance of Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, Archpriest of Saint Peter's Basilica, and with Father Francesco Occhetta, a Jesuit, who is Secretary General of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation.
Villaggio will be a harmonious, interfaith community on over 100 acres, near Saint Peter’s Basilica. Villaggio will serve as a convening forum focused on food and agriculture to train African agriculture extension experts who will return to Africa to help farmers produce and deliver nutritionally improved foods.
Villaggio will bring Fratelli Tutti to life by demonstrating how food promotes equitable social integration, solidarity, sustainability, and social friendship.
In summary, the nuns taught me to memorize the answer to the Baltimore catechism question: Why did God make me? And the answer was and is —to know, love, and serve God. Later, the Jesuits underscored the reason for human existence and the relationship between people and the world.
The universality of this philosophy is reflected in Albert Einstein's perspective about our life on earth: “…Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose…. there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of others… those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends, and for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy”.
Accepting this award allowed me to return to where my grandparents began in America 125 years ago… and to honor and thank them and everyone that has guided my incredible journey.
Giovanni and Benadetta created a remarkable legacy that flourishes across six generations. Papa thrived as a successful businessman and respected community leader. Papa and Grandma raised five children. From their union grew a lineage of 15 grandchildren, 47 great-grandchildren, 59 great-great-grandchildren, and even one great-great-great-grandchild.
Their family tree has blossomed into an extraordinary network of professionals contributing to enriching the economic, social, and religious fabric of our great country and the world.
My journey does not end tonight. I continue to seek to fulfill the mission that my Jesuit training has instilled, with the inspiration and encouragement that Pope Francis stimulated, and which continues with Pope Leo.
I will help create Villaggio della Fraternità through universal fraternity and social friendship to achieve global food security by eliminating hunger, malnutrition, and stunting.
Thank you to the Jesuit priests and Loyola professors who shaped and guided the contours of my life with knowledge, wisdom, and common sense.
And a special thanks to each of you for the opportunity to express appreciation about my immigrant grandparents for their bravery in coming to America, and to recognize my parents for sacrificing, guiding and supporting my efforts.
Thank you again for this wonderful evening and the 2025 Integritas Vitae award.
Grazie! Grazie Mille!
2025 John Benedict 'J.B.' Cordaro '63
2024 Louellen Aden Berger
2023 Amy Cyrex Sins ’98
2022 The Honorable Mary Ann Vial Lemmon, J.D. ’64
2021 Edgar "Dooky" Chase, III* ’71, J.D. ’83
2020 Lynn Coatney
2019 S. Derby Gisclair ’73
2018 Dr. Anthony Lazzara, Jr., M.D.
2017 Dr. R. Ranney Mize and Dr. Emel Songu Mize
2016 Anne Barrios Gauthier
2015 John P. Laborde, H ’96
2014 Maria Ribando Burmaster ’88, D.D.S.
2013 Phyllis M. Taylor, H ’15
2012 Sr. Imelda Moriarty*, C.C.V.I.
2011 Theodore A. Quant
2010 Frank A. France* ’49, M.Ed. ’56
2009 Tom Benson*, H ’87
2008 The Hon. Pascal F. Calogaro, Jr.*, J.D. ’54, H ’91
2007 Thomas H.* ’52 and Catherine B. Kloor*
2006 Donna D. Fraiche, J.D. ’75
2004 Alvaro B. Alcazar, M.R.E. ’84, Ph.D.
2003 Dr. Donald C. Faust ’73
2002 The Hon. Corinne “Lindy” Claiborne Boggs*, H ’77
2001 The Hon. Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu* ’52, J.D. ’54, H ’79, H ’05
2000 Rita T. Odenheimer*
1999 Phil Johnson* ’50
1998 P.R. “Sunny” Norman*
1997 Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil ’67
1996 Frank B. Stewart, Jr., and Elizabeth V. Lauricella
1994 Adelaide W. Benjamin, H ’08
1993 John F. Bricker*, H ’95
1992 Rosa F. Keller*, H ’84
1991 G. Frank Purvis, Jr.*
1990 Dr. Jack A. Andonie ’58
1989 Robert L. Howard
1988 James R. Moffett*
1987 Bishop Roger P. Morin*
1986 Dr. Norman C. Francis, J.D. ’55, H ’82
1985 Sr. Anthony Barczykowski, D.C.
1984 Mother Theresa of Calcutta*, H ’84
1984 Verna S. Landrieu ’54, H ’05
1983 Mrs. Martin O. Miller*
1982 Francis C. Doyle*, J.D. ’44, H ’88
1981 Alden J. Laborde*, H ’96
1980 Margaret E. Lauer* ’35, H ’67
1979 Sr. Mary David Stier*, O.P.
1978 Dr. Alton Ochsner*
1977 Archbishop Philip M. Hannan*, H ’66
*Deceased