Every now and then, something happens that changes the direction of your life. For retired business executive Philip Orso, it was a trip to Central and South America to see some of the Catholic missions he had supported, including those of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Nicaragua and Colombia.
While in Honduras, he encountered sisters from the Missionaries of Charity after a Mass. He helped arrange a roof repair for their orphanage and, one day, bought a birthday cake for one of the children. He said that the sisters refused to eat any, telling him that their vow of poverty meant they only ate rice and beans.
“I never saw people so at peace and joyful with what they were doing. And it actually shocked me…. I had never been happy, not like that, regardless of all my achievements,” Orso said.
On that same trip, Orso ended up volunteering as an interpreter for doctors and dentists providing pro bono medical care for residents of remote jungle villages.
“I was seeing things that no one should ever see,” Orso said of the extreme poverty he encountered.
After a few weeks of volunteering, he left for a planned luxury vacation in Aruba. When he arrived at his hotel suite, he experienced a profound spiritual transformation. He said he “could not reconcile what I saw in the jungle” with the luxury of the room.
That realization and a bout with a parasitic infection he picked up during his volunteer work led Orso to sell his new luxury car, 8,000-square-foot home, and to sell or give away many of his possessions.
“I got rid of everything … and I decided to live my life simply….This was the hand of God,” he says.
It was this decision, along with a deep interest in artificial intelligence (AI), technology, and empowering people that led him to make a call to The Catholic University of America earlier this fall — and to provide new opportunities for financially disadvantaged students.
Philip F. Orso Scholarship Program
His call led to conversations with University President Peter Kilpatrick and a new relationship with Catholic University.
“Our conversation quickly explored our shared reverence for the power of human ingenuity, a sense of awe at the unparalleled speed of technological innovation, and our common concern that innovation be harnessed exclusively toward the good of human flourishing,” Kilpatrick said.
A few weeks later, Orso and Kilpatrick were on campus, joined by Provost Aaron Dominguez, staff, faculty, and students to celebrate the signing of an agreement that established the Philip F. Orso Scholarship Program through a $4.5 million bequest from its benefactor.
The program will provide students who have financial need — living at the United States’ family poverty level — and are seeking degrees in artificial intelligence, computer science, engineering, or nursing with scholarships to attend Catholic University.
“A passionate philanthropist with the goal of shaping a principled future for artificial intelligence, Philip approached the Catholic University of America in search of a partner to educate a new generation of ethical innovators,” Kilpatrick said at the signing.
Orso, who plans to get to know and mentor scholarship recipients, said the program is the first step in his collaboration with Catholic University, which is committed to academic research grounded “in an ethical framework, built on faith and reason, and positioned to shape evolving public debate and emerging industry policies,” as Provost Dominguez put it.
While on campus, he met with engineering and nursing deans and students; members of the faculty, including those developing new undergraduate and graduate degrees in AI; and leaders at the Arthur & Carlyse Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship, which is housed within the Busch School of Business.
“One thing that strikes me about Catholic [University],” Orso says, “is how collaborative people are. It’s very open. You came together at this university with an entrepreneurial spirit in all of these different departments, and this is a done deal.…I’m super excited now. We got some big things to do.”
“I can’t tell you how beautiful it is to use your money like this,” he said.
