Pope names 2 Notre Dame professors as consultors to Vatican human development dicastery
Pope Leo XIV appointed 12 new consultors to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, including two professors from the University of Notre Dame. The dicastery, established by Pope Francis in 2016, focuses on peace, migration, health and ecology. Among the new consultors are Father Emmanuel Katongole of Uganda and Clemens Sedmak of Austria, both serving at Notre Dame. Other appointees include leaders from various Catholic institutions worldwide, such as a Los Angeles trust CEO, a Roman college rector and academics from Italy, Burkina Faso, Australia and India.
about 1 month ago
Pope Leo XIV appointed twelve new consultors to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, highlighting two scholars from the University of Notre Dame among the experts who will advise the dicastery on issues such as peace, migration, health, and ecology. 1
Pope Leo XIV’s appointment expands the dicastery’s advisory pool with a diverse mix of theologians, economists, and social‑ethics scholars. The twelve consultors will meet periodically with dicastery officials to provide specialized input on the Church’s integral‑human‑development agenda. 1
Earlier in June, Pope Leo XIV confirmed the leadership transition of the dicastery, appointing Sister Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, an Italian economist, as prefect to succeed Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ. Cardinal Fabio Baggio, CS, the former undersecretary, will serve as pro‑prefect, while Father Jozef Barlaš moves from undersecretary to secretary; all assume office on 1 September. 1
Investigate the Catholic Church’s role in global human development
The Catholic Church’s role in global human development is best understood as integral rather than merely economic. It combines evangelization, education, health care, charity, social advocacy, protection of vulnerable people, ecological responsibility, and the formation of conscience. Catholic teaching neither identifies development with economic growth nor claims to possess a technical solution to poverty. Instead, it argues that authentic development must serve the whole person and every people, respect human dignity, strengthen solidarity, and remain open to moral and spiritual truth.
Catholic social teaching uses the term integral human development to mean the advancement of the entire human person in every dimension: material, social, moral, cultural, and spiritual. Benedict XVI teaches that “authentic human development concerns the whole person in every single dimension,” warning that progress can otherwise be reduced to the accumulation of wealth.
This approach differs from a purely technocratic model, in which development is measured primarily by income, infrastructure, productivity, or technological capacity. John Paul II states that development cannot be reduced to a technical problem because doing so empties it of the very human meaning it is intended to serve.
The Church therefore evaluates development by asking questions such as:
Benedict XVI describes this moral framework as “love in truth”: charity enlightened by reason and faith. In a globalized world, nations and economies are increasingly interdependent, but that interdependence does not automatically produce justice. Ethical responsibility must accompany economic and technological integration.
The Church regards proclamation of the Gospel as directly related to human advancement. Evangelization is not limited to a private religious message; it includes the transformation of social relationships through justice, peace, and charity. Romero summarizes this relationship by stating that Christian testimony through works of “justice, peace and development” belongs to evangelization because Christ is concerned with the whole person.
John Paul II similarly argues that the Church serves development by offering a comprehensive vision of the human person and by proclaiming the primacy of spiritual values. The person struggling against poverty is not a different person from the one seeking redemption and eternal life.
This contribution is foundational. The Church seeks to prevent development from becoming an attempt to “save” humanity through political power, consumption, or technology alone. Benedict XVI argues that institutions by themselves cannot guarantee integral development; development requires personal responsibility, solidarity, and a transcendent vision of the human person.
Education is one of the Church’s most extensive instruments of development. Catholic schools, universities, seminaries, adult-formation programs, and educational initiatives contribute not only to literacy and professional competence but also to the formation of judgment, character, responsibility, and solidarity.
The Congregation for Catholic Education identifies Populorum Progressio as a central policy document for the Church’s mission in globalization. It emphasizes “global humanism,” social integration, subsidiarity, and the need to educate people toward a new understanding of human beings, society, life, and the relationship with nature.
This educational role is important because development depends on more than the distribution of resources. It requires people capable of cooperation, ethical decision-making, civic participation, and care for others. The Church’s concept of fraternal humanism seeks to form people who can resist individualism and indifference while respecting cultural and religious diversity.
The Church also sees education as a means of connecting hope with practical responsibility. The Congregation for Catholic Education states that development and progress describe processes but do not by themselves identify the ultimate purpose of human history. Catholic education places development within the horizon of Christian redemption rather than treating progress as an indefinite utopia.
Catholic religious orders, dioceses, hospitals, clinics, and charitable organizations have long served people who are poor, sick, elderly, displaced, or otherwise excluded. The sources specifically present health care as a field in which human dignity must remain the governing principle.
Leo XIV’s message on artificial intelligence and medicine states that technological development can benefit humanity, but only if human dignity and the common good remain decisive priorities. He describes health-care professionals as guardians and servants of human life, especially when life is vulnerable.
This perspective has two implications for global development:
The same message warns that medicine must not be reduced to problem-solving alone. Human relationships, communication, and closeness remain essential to authentic care.
The Church’s pandemic guidance likewise treats mental and social well-being as dimensions of human development. It emphasizes that people are embodied and relational beings, not isolated individuals. Isolation and individualism can intensify suffering, while communities can become sources of consolation, healing, and social integration.
The Church participates in development through immediate assistance: food, shelter, emergency relief, pastoral care, refugee support, and accompaniment of people affected by war, poverty, disasters, and displacement. But Catholic social teaching insists that charity must be joined to justice and structural concern.
The Church’s preferred model is not simply delivering aid to passive recipients. It seeks to accompany people, recognize their agency, and support their participation in shaping their own future. The fisheries message of 2024, for example, encourages fishing communities to become active participants in history rather than “docile victims.” It calls for the protection of small communities, family businesses, and local organizations as contributors to the common good.
Leo XIV’s address concerning migrants and refugees proposes four fields of action—teaching, research, service, and advocacy—and insists that solutions must place the dignity of every human person at the center.
The address also identifies reconciliation and hope as essential to development. Conflicts, forced migration, and displacement cannot be addressed only through administrative or economic measures; lasting change requires attention to wounded relationships, social memory, and the exclusion of vulnerable people.
The Church’s role is not confined to charitable projects. Catholic social doctrine also evaluates laws, economic systems, labor conditions, international arrangements, and political decisions.
Paul VI specifically calls upon the laity to improve the temporal order—that is, the social, economic, political, and cultural world. Lay Catholics are urged to act through their own initiative, to bring Christian principles into laws and civil structures, and to offer their skills to organizations working on the problems of developing nations.
This lay vocation is crucial. The hierarchy teaches and interprets moral principles, but the laity ordinarily apply those principles in professional, civic, political, scientific, and economic life. Development therefore cannot be delegated entirely to clergy or Church institutions.
The Church’s contribution is also distinct from proposing a single political or economic system. John Paul II states that the Church does not prescribe technical revolutions or choose between economic and political systems, provided that human dignity is respected and promoted. Her role is to identify the moral conditions, purposes, and obstacles of authentic development.
Catholic teaching treats economic activity as a human activity that must serve persons and communities. The Church does not reject business, markets, or technology, but challenges economic practices that treat people as instruments or externalize costs onto the poor and the environment.
The Catholic reflection on business leadership teaches that human flourishing requires reasoning well, choosing freely, and living in community. It further emphasizes that communion must include all people—especially the weakest and marginalized—as well as the natural environment.
Schindler’s analysis of Caritas in Veritate develops this point by criticizing an exclusively binary model of “market plus state.” He argues that economic and political institutions must be integrated by a logic of unconditional gift, which is especially formed in families and civil society.
The implication is that development depends on institutions such as families, associations, cooperatives, unions, religious communities, and voluntary organizations. These bodies cultivate trust and reciprocity that neither the state nor the market can generate by themselves.
The Church increasingly connects human development with environmental responsibility. The 2024 and 2025 fisheries messages illustrate this integrated approach.
The Church’s 2024 message warns that predatory economic practices and intensive fishing can destroy ecosystems while impoverishing the communities that depend on them. It calls for technological development that protects the dignity and security of labor and restores balance among people, work, and the environment.
The 2025 message applies this concern to industrial fishing, migrant labor, unsafe working conditions, trafficking, and the vulnerability of coastal communities. It stresses that ecological damage and labor exploitation are interconnected rather than separate problems.
This is an example of integral ecology: the idea that environmental protection, economic justice, labor rights, and the welfare of the poor must be addressed together.
Human trafficking represents an extreme contradiction of human development because it deprives people of freedom, dignity, and bodily security. The Church’s pastoral orientations call for the liberation and rehabilitation of victims, but also for the dismantling of the systems of deception, entrapment, domination, and exploitation that sustain trafficking.
The document insists that overcoming trafficking requires a joint global effort involving governments, civil society, international institutions, and Churches.
This reveals a recurring pattern in Catholic development work: the Church combines:
The Church’s public contribution to development is weakened whenever ecclesial institutions fail to protect the vulnerable or respond truthfully to abuse. The 2026 message concerning the protection of minors and vulnerable adults makes this connection explicit.
It states that communities become trustworthy when dignity is recognized and freedom is safeguarded. Protection requires more than formal rules; it demands transparency, proper formation, vigilance, responsible authority, and a culture of prevention.
The message also calls the Church to acknowledge wrongdoing, listen humbly to survivors, seek justice, and pursue healing rather than defending itself against painful testimony.
This is not peripheral to human development. A Church that teaches human dignity must embody that teaching in its own governance and institutions. Safeguarding, financial responsibility, transparency, and accountability are therefore part of the Church’s developmental witness, not merely administrative concerns.
Catholic teaching does not claim that the Church can independently solve global poverty, inequality, technological disruption, migration, or ecological crisis. Benedict XVI explicitly states that the Church does not offer technical solutions and does not seek to interfere in the politics of states.
Her role is instead to:
The Church’s social doctrine functions as a bridge between faith and concrete social realities. It receives insights from different fields of knowledge, brings them into a unified moral vision, and applies them to changing social conditions.
This also means that Catholic teaching does not automatically endorse every project carried out in the Church’s name. Catholic institutions can make prudential mistakes, use ineffective methods, or fail morally. The distinction between authoritative principles and particular policies or projects is therefore important. The Church provides a moral and anthropological framework, while many concrete decisions require expertise in economics, medicine, public administration, environmental science, and local culture.
The Catholic Church’s role in global human development is multidimensional:
Its central claim is that development is not authentic if it produces wealth while degrading persons, families, workers, cultures, or creation. Nor is it complete if it provides material goods while ignoring freedom, truth, moral responsibility, and the human search for meaning.
In Catholic terms, the Church contributes to development by serving the human person as a whole. Its distinctive resource is not a proprietary economic program but a vision of humanity created in God’s image, redeemed in Christ, and called to solidarity and communion. As Benedict XVI summarizes, authentic development requires both responsibility in solidarity and a transcendent vision of the person; without these, development can become dehumanized.