The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America is a satellite session of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. Prior to September 2017, it was a satellite session of the central session at the Lateran University in Rome. The institute is devoted to the study of the truth about the human person in all of its dimensions: theological, philosophical, anthropological, and cosmological-scientific. The institute views that it centers its study of the person in the community that is the original cell of human society: marriage and family. History At the conclusion of the 1980 Synod of Bishops devoted to the family, the Synod Fathers called for the creation of theological centers devoted to the study of the Church's teaching on marriage and the family. Accordingly, Pope John Paul II responded to the Synod with the establishment of the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and the Pontifical Council for the Family. The institute's establishment was to be announced at the Holy Father's Wednesday audience on May 13, 1981. Because of the attempted assassination, the institute's Apostolic Constitution, Magnum Matrimonii Sacramentum, was instead given on October 7, 1982, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. On that occasion the institute was entrusted in a special way to the care of the most Blessed Virgin Mary under her title Our Lady of Fatima. The Washington session was founded in 1988 at the request of then-Archbishop of Washington Cardinal James Hickey and Virgil C. Dechant, who was then Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus. Location The institute is located in McGivney Hall on the campus of Catholic University in the Brookland section of Washington, DC. It was previously housed at the nearby Dominican House of Studies, and later at McCormick Pavilion. Governance Despite its name and location, the institute is juridically separate from Catholic University. It falls under the authority of the Grand Chancellor and president at the Roman session of the institute, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and Monsignor Philippe Bordeyne, respectively. Locally, it is governed by a Vice-Chancellor, who is always the archbishop of Washington, and a vice-president, currently Carl A. Anderson. Academics The Washington session offers programs leading to the pontifical degrees of Doctor and Licentiate of Sacred Theology with special emphasis in marriage and family studies. It also confers the degrees