Pope Leo XIV has appointed Holy Cross Father Daniel Groody, the vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education and professor of theology and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame, as a member of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Vatican announc ed on Monday, March 30. Established by the late Pope Francis in 2016, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development supports the Church’s worldwide efforts in the areas of human dignity and human rights, economic justice, care for creation, migration and displacement, as well as peace, conflict, and humanitarian crises. As a dicastery member, Father Groody will contribute to the body’s ongoing discernment process that will help orient the Church’s mission and priorities. He will continue in his roles at Notre Dame while serving the dicastery. “I am truly honored and humbled by Pope Leo’s appointment,” Father Groody said. “My vocation is to serve, together with my colleagues at Notre Dame and around the world. The work of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is vital to informing the Church’s response to the world’s most vulnerable people and the most pressing global challenges of our time.” Vatican Media/Provided by the University of Notre DamePope Leo XIV greets Holy Cross Father Daniel Groody at the Vatican. While numerous Notre Dame faculty members have served the Vatican as consultants to dicasteries and have been named to pontifical academies and commissions, Father Groody’s appointment is a distinct honor, noted Holy Cross Father Robert A. Dowd, president of Notre Dame. “To be called upon by the Holy See to serve in this capacity is a testament to Father Groody’s deep commitment to leadership in service of the most vulnerable among us,” Father Dowd said. “This appointment is also an affirmation of Notre Dame’s ongoing contributions to Catholic social thought, to integral ecology, and to forming leaders dedicated to the common good. I am profoundly grateful for Father Groody’s dedication to the university and to the Church, and I am confident that his leadership will be a tremendous blessing as he helps to guide the Church in these areas.” The most notable precedent in Notre Dame history is the appointment of then-President Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, as a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture by Pope St. John Paul II in 1983. “Father Groody’s appointment honors not only his faithful service at the University of Notre Dame, but also his ongoing commitment to integral ecology and the promotion of the dignity of immigrants,” Holy Cross Brother Paul Bednarczyk, Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross, said in a statement released by the congregation. “I am pleased that the dicastery has recognized this by providing him the opportunity to share his gifts and talents with the universal Church.” Father Groody’s academic and pastoral work has focused in part on migration, theology, refugees, and human displacement – areas that are directly relevant to the mandate of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. An internationally recognized expert on migration, Father Groody is also an award-winning author, teacher, and documentary film producer. He has written four books and numerous articles and has edited or co-edited five books. His works have been translated into nine languages. Father Groody’s most recent book, “A Theology of Migration: The Bodies of Refugees and the Body of Christ,” includes a letter written by Pope Francis to Father Groody that serves as the foreword to the book. Pope Francis wrote: “I read it with great care, and I feel moved by the beauty, the tenderness, the pain, and the commitment that comes forth from each one of its pages. I see the work of the shepherd involved and immersed in the healing and restoring of fundamental rights of communities so distant yet so close to each other: Syria, Rwanda, Mexico, Lampedusa. All of them are images and voices of realities that, in your narrative, express the need for the Church’s commitment to migrants and refugees: a Church called to extend a hand, to embrace and to welcome the weak, the invisible, and the discarded of the world.” This announcement follows Father Groody’s appointment under Pope Francis in 2025 to the General Council of the Laudato Si’ Higher Education Center in Castel Gandolfo, which is now known as Borgo Laudato Si’. In that role, Father Groody helps shape the vision, direction and formation of the center, as well as advising on initiatives and global partnerships. He also plays an essential role in Notre Dame’s recently announced partnership with the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center to establish a Global Alliance dedicated to integral ecology and global sustainability. The post Father Daniel Groody Appointed to Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development appeared first on Today's Catholic. ...read more read less