Pope names 2 Notre Dame professors as consultors to Vatican human development dicastery

Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday appointed 12 new consultors to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development — reflecting a diverse group of theologians, experts, and professors, including two from the University of Notre Dame.

Pope Francis established the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in 2016. It promotes the Church’s efforts in the areas of peace, migration, health, and ecology. Consultors are called on to periodically meet with dicastery members to provide expert advice.

Pope Leo XIV renewed the leadership of the dicastery at the end of June with the appointment of Italian economist Sister Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, to succeed Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, as prefect.

He also appointed Italian Cardinal Fabio Baggio, CS, who has been the dicastery’s undersecretary since 2022, to serve as pro-prefect alongside Smerilli. Father Jozef Barlaš was promoted from the dicastery’s undersecretary to secretary. They begin their roles on Sept. 1.

2 Notre Dame professors appointed

Among the new consultors are Father Emmanuel Katongole, a priest from the Archdiocese of Kampala in Uganda and a professor of theology and peace studies at Notre Dame.

Before joining Notre Dame’s faculty, as stated in his biography, Katongole served as associate professor of theology and world Christianity at Duke University and as a founding co-director of the Duke Center for Reconciliation. He is also the founder and president of Bethany Land Institute, an education center in Rwanda inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’.

Clemens Sedmak is the other Notre Dame faculty member among the newly appointed consultors. Sedmak is a professor of social ethics and director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.

A native of Austria, Sedmak previously served as the FD Maurice Professor for Moral Theology and Social Theology at King’s College in London. He has also served on the faculty of the University of Salzburg and holds degrees in philosophy, theology, and social theory.

Other appointees

The other new consultors to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development are:

• Kathryn A. Koch, president and chief executive officer of Trust Company of the West in Los Angeles
• Monsignor Peter Klasvogt, rector of the Pontifical Teutonic College of Santa Maria in Camposanto in Rome
• Father Francesco Coluccia, director of the Office of Healthcare Ministry of the Archdiocese of Otranto, Italy
• Father Joseph Jeyaraj Swaminathan, SDB, associate professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome
• Omer S. Combary, professor in the Department of Economics at Thomas Sankara University in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
• Lucy Afandi Esipila, regional executive secretary of Caritas Africa
• Paolo Foglizzo, editor of Aggiornamenti Sociali — San Fedele Cultural Foundation in Milan, Italy
• Peter G. Kirchschläger, director of the Institute of Social Ethics at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland
• Jacqueline Remond, adjunct lecturer at the School of Theology of Australian Catholic University in Sydney
• Caren Rodrigues, associate professor at St. Joseph’s Institute of Management in Bangalore, India