4 U.S. leaders named to Vatican dicastery that promotes Church’s humanitarian vision, work

Pope Leo XIV has appointed four U.S.-based scholars and leaders as members of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development.

Named among 11 new dicastery members the Holy See announced March 30 are: Holy Cross Father Daniel Groody, deputy principal and associate principal for university education of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana; Meghan J. Clark, assistant chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies of St. John’s University in New York; Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, Texas; and Léocadie Lushombo, professor of theological ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, Calif.

At Notre Dame, Father Groody’s academic and pastoral work has involved migration, refugees and human displacement. He is the author of “A Theology of Migration: The Bodies of Refugees and the Body of Christ,” published in 2022 with an introduction written by Pope Francis. In 2025, he was appointed by Pope Francis to the general council of Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo, Italy.

In a statement issued by the university, Father Groody said he was “truly honored and humbled by Pope Leo’s appointment.”

“My vocation is to serve, together with my colleagues at Notre Dame and around the world,” he said. “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.”

Established by Pope Francis in 2016, the dicastery supports the Church’s 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. It is led by Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny. Dicastery members contribute to the body’s ongoing discernment process on the Church’s humanitarian mission and priorities.

Corbett, whose work with the Hope Border Institute applies the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, said in a statement that he was “humbled by this appointment.”

“The pope is very attentive to God’s work in border communities and with people who are migrating to bring about a more just and compassionate world,” he said. “I’m honored to do what I can to bring this perspective to the critical work done by the dicastery, in service to the Holy Father and the global Church, to advance the social Gospel, so that all might have life, and have it abundantly.”

In a separate statement, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso praised Corbett’s appointment, saying this “recognition affirms Mr. Corbett’s faithful leadership and his witness of faith to our border community, where the dignity of all that is encountered and defended each day.”

Clark, who previously worked with the dicastery’s section on migrants and refugees in 2022 for the project “Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries,” also described herself as “honored and humbled” by the appointment and “grateful for the opportunity to serve the Dicastery and the Church in this new way.”

“As a moral theologian, I work on Catholic social teaching, seeking to examine the intersections of human dignity, solidarity, and development,” she said in a statement. “I am humbled to be alongside such esteemed colleagues — all deeply committed to promoting and practicing the social teachings of the Church with particular attention to the dignity of the marginalized-especially migrants-of the common good, and integral ecology.”

Lushombo likewise described herself as “delighted, honored, and humbled” by the appointment. In a statement, she noted her previous collaboration with the dicastery as member of a study group from 2024-2025 analyzing documents from the Synod on Synodality that related to the poor and care for creation.

“The mission of the IHD Dicastery is to promote the human dignity of all individuals, without exception, with particular attention to the weakest, the least, and the excluded,” said Lushombo, a member of the Teresian Association, an international Catholic association of laypeople.

“The fulfillment of the human person is really the glory of God,” she continued. “That is why dignity matters, justice matters, and why faith without justice makes no sense. That is the focus of my work — each person being recognized for their inherent dignity endowed by God, as imago Dei. My work affirms that recognizing this dignity is imperative not only for the flourishing of the excluded, but for human flourishing.”

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