Since Pope Francis began his pontificate in 2013, he has been making changes to the Roman Curia. This past January 2017, the transformation of four pontifical councils into one officially went into effect to form the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, with Card. Peter Turkson as the Prefect.
The Vatican held the first meeting for the dicastery on April 3-4, focusing on Paul VI's encyclical 'Populorum Progressio.â? The cardinal has stated that this document will be the focus of the dicastery, helping center the focus on development through addressing sickness, humanitarianism and assistance, migrants and conflicts.
CARD. PETER TURKSON
Prefect, Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
'Integral means we're not looking at development and turning or casting a blind eye on instabilities in families, economic instabilities and violence in the world and all of that. The lack of religious freedom. Development to be integral means that all of these different factors need to be taken on board. That's why it's integral. It's integral about our person, we must have it all together within ourselves, have it all together within our communities and have it all together for every one of us.â?
One of the Under-Secretaries for the dicastery is this woman Flaminia Giovanelli, who has worked in the Vatican for 32 years. She says she doesn't exactly know how the change will play out, but she thinks combining all view points will have a positive outcome.
FLAMINIA GIOVANELLI
Under-Secretary, Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
'I believe that it will change the way we see problems, seeing problems as transverse between the old offices that are now all together. They are problems that were treated in a different way in each of the old councils. Now, we are going to have this great opportunity to be able to consider every problem, every form of management from several points of view living all together. I think that's going to make it very important.â?
As a result of combining all these view points, the cardinal explained that there is still a central goal. By keeping 'Populorum Progressioâ? as the core business of the dicastery, the mission for all involved will be to help humanity in the world today, always working toward peace.
CARD. PETER TURKSON
Prefect, Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
'If you want a very excellent recipe for the type of peace we're looking for, we've been talking about this so long, but what does it take to make it happen is something we don't want to touch. Being put in charge of this is to, at least, in a very modest way at least, begin to send signals or begin to take the first very small steps toward making this happen.â?
The cardinal said the upcoming years will be full of advocacy work, conferences and talks, and small-scale projects to show how the world can slowly change one initiative at a time when everyone works together with one goal in mind.
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