[1] He received a Doctorate in Sacred Scripture with a thesis on the literary structure of the Letter to the Hebrews from the Pontifical Biblical Institute (the Biblicum) in Rome in 1961.

[3] After teaching for three years at the Jesuit study house of Chantilly,[4] he became Professor of Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1963; he was dean of the faculty from 1969 to 1975 and served as its rector from 1984 to 1990.

[6] He was a member of the commission that prepared the apostolic constitution Sapientia Christiana on ecclesiastical universities and faculties, which Pope John Paul II issued in 1979.

[12] In November of that year, Pope Benedict chose him as one of two prelates charged with presenting his second encyclical Spe Salvi at a press conference held upon its release.

[16] He drew on the work produced at the end of his tenure at the Biblical Commission and published in November 2001 as The Jewish People and the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Bible.

[17] He served as Grand Prior of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George from 2008 until his appointment by Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, in November 2010 as Ecclesiastical Counsellor to the Royal House of Bourbon Two Sicilies.