Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
Pope Francis has instituted a new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Justice and Peace is to be merged into this new Dicastery which will be led by Cardinal Peter Turkson, currently serving as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The new Dicastery was instituted in a Motu Proprio published in the Osservatore Romano.
The Dicastery, to come into effect on Jan. 1, 2017, will be especially “competent in issues regarding 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.”
On that same date, four Pontifical Councils–the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Pontifical Council Cor Unum, Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, and Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers (for Health Pastoral Care)–will cease to exist and will be effectively encompassed into the new Dicastery.