Vatican City, Apr 23, 2022 / 05:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, as the new prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development on Saturday.
Czerny, 75, succeeds Cardinal Peter Turkson, who led the social development dicastery from 2016 to 2021.
Pope Francis on April 23 also named a new secretary for the dicastery, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, and appointed Fr. Fabio Baggio as the undersecretary of the dicastery with responsibility for its Migrants and Refugees Section.
Both Czerny and Smerilli have recently served as the “ad interim” leaders for the positions they were officially appointed to within the dicastery since the beginning of this year.
Czerny was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1946 and immigrated with his family to Canada at the age of two. He has served as Under-secretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section of the dicastery since 2017. The Jesuit priest received the cardinal’s red hat in October 2019.
Pope Francis named Smerilli, an Italian economist and member of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, as the dicastery’s interim secretary in August.
🇬🇧 I thank the Holy Father for the trust he has once again placed in me. I am happy to be able to work together with Card. Czerny and Father Baggio at the service of promoting the integral development of each person, the peace among nations and the care of our common home. pic.twitter.com/EPtkQF7hix
— Alessandra Smerilli (@ASmerilli) April 23, 2022
Baggio, an Italian missionary priest of the Scalabrian Order, was appointed an under-secretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section alongside Czerny in Dec. 2016.
Pope Francis’ new appointments for the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development came on the same day that the pope named two new secretaries for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
The pope has selected Italian Monsignor Armando Matteo to lead the CDF’s Doctrinal Section and Irishman Monsignor John Joseph Kennedy to lead its Disciplinary Section.
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Cardinal Czerny SJ is also notable for serving as special secretary to the Amazonia Synod and allegedly [Lifesite] is open to female ordination. His appointment as prefect, Integral Human Development appears consistent in context of the Pontiff’s appointment of Cardinal Hollerich SJ [who favors LGBT and women’s ordination] as Synod relator, and the prospective appointment of Archbishop Scicluna [pro LGBT, communion D&R] as CDF prefect.
Added to the growing deployment of pro gay, female ordination, communion for D&R prelate warriors His Holiness recently fired the CDF’s Secretary, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, the driving force for the CDF’s 2021 ban on homosexual blessings. Vatican observers believe Morandi’s firing to have been a punishment for this document, as well as being linked to Morandi’s opposition to Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Latin Mass contained in Traditionis custodes (gloria tv, LifeSite).
His Holiness, who [in letter form] admonished the Germans for Synodal Way transgressions, may nonetheless remind some of us of Vladimir Putin who continued Now I don’t wish to be negative about Czerny’s deployment, I mean appointment.
Speculation? Perhaps. But doesn’t it remind us of Vladimir Putin’s deployment of his military on the Ukraine border while assuring the world he had no plans to invade. If as some thought Operation Amazonia plan A was jettisoned [recall the infuriated Cardinal Marx resigning only to be rehired and praised by Francis] plan B apparently was not.