Pope Leo XIV announced 16 new appointments on March 30, five of them from the U.S.
Four of the U.S. appointees, two men and two women, joined the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development:
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development has the task of promoting the human person and the God-given dignity of all, together with human rights, health, justice and peace. It is principally concerned with matters relating to the economy and work, the care of creation and the earth as our “common home,” migration and humanitarian emergencies.
Pope Francis created this dicastery in 2016, combining the work of four Pontifical Councils established following the Second Vatican Council: Justice and Peace, Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, and Cor Unum.
He gave it responsibility for “issues regarding migrants, those in need, the sick, the excluded and marginalized, the imprisoned and the unemployed, as well as victims of armed conflict, natural disasters, and all forms of slavery and torture.”
Four new members from the U.S.
These are the new American appointees, making up four of the 10 new members:
- Meghan J. Clark, vice dean of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies of Saint John’s University in New York
- Dylan Mason Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, Texas
- Father Daniel Gerard Groody, C.S.C., vice dean and associate dean for Undergraduate Education at the University of Notre Dame
- Léocadie Wabo Lushombo, I.T., professor of ethical theology at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California, and consecrated member of the Teresian Association
Responses to appointment
Clark, a moral theologian focused on Catholic social teaching, told EWTN News she is “grateful for the opportunity to serve the dicastery and the Church in this new way.”
Hope Border Institute
Bishop Seitz of El Paso thanked God for Corbett’s appointment in a statement:
I give thanks to God for the appointment of Dylan Corbett of the Hope Border Institute to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development by our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV. This recognition affirms Mr. Corbett’s faithful leadership and his witness of faith to our border community, where the dignity of all that is encountered and defended each day. We look forward to continuing to work alongside Mr. Corbett as he continues his service as the executive director of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso.
I have had the pleasure and honor of working alongside Mr. Corbett as the founding Executive Director of the Hope Border Institute for more than a decade. His unwavering commitment to accompanying migrants and advocating for policies rooted in the Gospel and in the Church’s social teaching has gone a long way to bring attention to this matter on our border. His work has consistently reflected a deep commitment to justice, compassion, and the common good, particularly for those on the margins.
The mission of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is especially close to the reality we live here along the U.S./Mexico border. Issues of migration, human dignity, and the care for our common home are not abstract concerns for us, but lived experiences that call for pastoral care.
University of Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., said Groody will be “a tremendous blessing” to this work, in a statement:
To be called upon by the Holy See to serve in this capacity is a testament to Father Groody’s deep commitment to leadership in service of the most vulnerable among us. This appointment is also an affirmation of Notre Dame’s ongoing contributions to Catholic social thought, to integral ecology and to forming leaders dedicated to the common good. I am profoundly grateful for Father Groody’s dedication to the University and to the Church, and I am confident that his leadership will be a tremendous blessing as he helps to guide the Church in these areas.
Fr. Groody called the dicastery’s work “vital” to today’s “most pressing” issues as he thanked the pope for appointing him:
I am truly honored and humbled by Pope Leo’s appointment. My vocation is to serve, together with my colleagues at Notre Dame and around the world. The work of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is vital to informing the Church’s response to the world’s most vulnerable people and the most pressing global challenges of our time.
Lushombo hopes her work with the dicastery will continue its promotion of human dignity:
The mission of the IHD Dicastery is to promote the human dignity of all individuals, without exception, with particular attention to the weakest, the least, and the excluded.
The fulfillment of the human person is really the glory of God. That is why dignity matters, justice matters, and why faith without justice makes no sense.
That is the focus of my work — each person being recognized for their inherent dignity endowed by God, as imago Dei. My work affirms that recognizing this dignity is imperative not only for the flourishing of the excluded, but for human flourishing.
New members appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors
A final U.S.-based appointee, Susan Lynn Bissell, is Canadian, but has lived and worked in the U.S. since 2009.
A researcher at the FXB Centre for Health and Human Rights of Harvard University, Bissell has focused her career on the rights, safety and security of children. She spent over 25 years working in various capacities for UNICEF, and from 2016 until 2018 led the establishment of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children and its associated Fund.
Her appointment, along with that of Laurent Delvolvé, a lawyer at the Paris Bar, compensates for the departure of Teresa Morris Kettelkamp, who announced her resignation for family reasons on March 27.
