Promoting Integral Human Development

POPE Francis has created a new de partment in the Vatican for the promotion of integral human development. He wants bishops, priests, and lay people to get out from behind their desks and put the Gospel into action.

Francis’vision is for the Church to take a practical lead on everything from abolition of the death penalty to climate change to the needs of the world’s poorest. The big question is how will the rest of the Church respond to his challenge?

The new statutes reveal that a section of the dicastery will be dedicated to helping migrants and refugees and that it will be under Francis’direct contr ol .

For Francis, the real test of the Church is not how it herds people into its doctrinal system but how it treats outcasts. He has set up a personal ministry to refugees throughout his pontificate – something seen most dramatically when he took 12 Syrian refugees back to Rome on the papal plane from Lesbos. That gesture was driven by him, and had very little to do with any curial committee. This is the style that defines this papacy: the approach of a man who is wary of systems and institutions and much more interested in exercising a one-on-one pastoral ministry, which is sometimes risk-taking and often surprising.

Francis signaled this approach at the start of his pontificate, when he warned that without spiritual renewal, the Church could become a “compassionate NGO”. His vision is ready to take concrete steps to help suffering humanity.

Francis believes also in a “synodal” Church – one that listens, and where bishops and cardinals are encouraged to have open debate and discussion.

An important decision awaiting him is the theme for the next Synod of Bishops, which officials expect him to make a call on very soon.

But it is going to require careful judgment, given that the last synod gathering on the family produced fierce disagreement, with cardinals pitted against the Pope and the fallout – over, for example, whether divorced and remarried Catholics can receive communion.

Some people have speculated that the next synod will consider the question of ordaining married men, an option which is possibly gaining ground among bishops, given the critical shortage of priests in some parts of the world. Another less inward-looking topic would be to focus on how the Church can build peace and resolve conflict in an increasingly violent world.

In the St. Peter’s Square there was a Mother Teresa’s canonization Mass. Teresa was praised there as a “small but very strong woman” who symbolized service to the poorest in society.

That is really integral human devel opment .