AMECEA: “We are at Your Service,” Cardinal Czerny at a Conference for Integral Human Development
Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, interim president of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, smiles during a visit with Ukrainian refugees in Barabás, Hungary, March 9, 2022. Cardinal Czerny, serving as special envoy for Pope Francis, visited refugees who are being helped by Caritas and other charities in the town near the Ukrainian border. (CNS photo/courtesy Lambert Attila/Magyar Kurír)
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
At a conference that brought together participants from across the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) region and the Vatican, the Cardinal Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (PIHD) has assured their commitment to meeting the needs and expectations of the people serving to promote human development.
In his message read by Ms. Sara Binaghi, who serves at the Vatican’s General Secretariat of PIHD, His Eminence Michael Cardinal Czerny a member of the Society of Jesus (SJ) expressed, “We exist to be at your service. As we serve both the Holy Father and the bishops, we do not do development, as such, ourselves, but we support the efforts of the local Church, your concerns, your activities and hopes.”
The Holy Father instituted the Dicastery for PIHD in August 2016 to help meet the needs of “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.” The Dicastery then entered into force on 1 January 2017.
The former Under Secretary of PIHD explained in his Thursday, November 28, opening speech that the Dicastery is mandated to assist the Holy Father and the bishops to promote integral human development. Thus, with the Roman Curia reform in 2022, the Dicastery “give at least equal attention, if not more, to the bishops and their co-workers in the human development field.”
The over 30 participants who gathered at Roussel House Donum Dei, Nairobi, Kenya from 27 to 30th November comprised of Bishops and officials presiding over the Commissions in the PIHD in the Episcopal Conferences in the AMECEA region together with officials from the Vatican’s Dicastery, to reflect on integral human development from their conferences, and to find ways and means of overcoming obstacles to this important area of life.
Cardinal Czerny promised to continue walking together with those serving in this mission of integral human development, especially in the obstacles identified as well as the opportunities realized.
“May the Lord bless you all in accepting and fulfilling the mission which the Lord entrusts to us, that all may have life and have it to the full,” said the Cardinal who served in the AMECEA region for nearly seven years and initiated the African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN).
