In a forward for the booklet titled "Equality, Encounter and Renewal", which was published March 7, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, lamented the historic marginalisation of women around the world.

"Despite the equal dignity of every human person, historically over the centuries, in so many aspects of life, women have not been allowed access to the same opportunities men have had," she said.

Apart from facing numerous barriers to opportunity, women and girls, she said, "have also disproportionately been innocent victims of violations against human dignity."

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Cottrell said he felt encouraged to have met people within the Roman Catholic Church leadership after meeting Pope Francis at the Anglican Centre on Monday.

His audience with Francis "further consolidated the strong bonds of friendship between our two World Communions," he said.

"We are now looking forward to further co-operation between the Dicasteries of the Vatican and the Anglican Centre in Rome."

These meetings focussed on evangelisation and ecumenism-building interfaith connections.

To this end, the Anglican archbishop met with the Vatican's Dicasteries for Evangelisation, Promoting Christian Unity, Interreligious Dialogue and Promoting Integral Human Development.

"My prayer is that Christians of all denominations can work together more and be united in our desire to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit, as we look to share the love of God as seen in Jesus with the many in our world who long for hope and meaning in their lives," he said.

On Wednesday, Cottrell met Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle from the Dicastery for Evangelisation. Their discussion, entitled "The Ecumenical Impact on Evangelisation", was live-streamed from the Anglican Centre.

Archbishop Ian Ernest, the Director of the Anglican Centre and the Archbishop of Canterbury's Representative to the Holy See organised his visit.

The Anglican Centre is a vital link between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. They work on shared projects and offer opportunities for study, hospitality and encounter.

Ernst said Cottrell's visit "comes as an affirmation of the longing of the Anglican Communion to diligently and constantly work for the visible unity of Christians.

"The personal commitment of Archbishop Stephen, in the different callings he has exercised, to encourage a collaborative spirit amongst different groups of people, in spite of cultural, denominational and religious differences, inspires and encourages us to carry forward with love the mission entrusted to the Anglican Centre in Rome."

Source

• Church Times
• Independent Catholic News

According to several sources, a three-person team of visitators will be dispatched to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in the coming weeks.

This will be the fourth Vatican office to be subject of an apostolic visitation, a completely new method of internal auditing and inspection that the Jesuit pope first launched earlier this year.

The new visitation team will interview some of the 60 employees who work at the dicastery's Palazzo San Callisto headquarters in Rome's Trastevere quarter.

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The Pontifical Academy for Life, assisted by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, issued "Old Age: Our Future. The elderly after the pandemic" on February 9.

It was signed by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and Father Renzo Pegoraro, respectively the president and chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

The text is not only concerned about the fate of the elderly after the pandemic. It also warns that older folks are often being left to fend for themselves as the health emergency rages.

"We are all in the same storm, but it is increasingly evident that we are on different boats, and that the least seaworthy boats are sinking every day," the note adds by way of analogy.

"Discarding the old - even with expressions - is a serious problem for everyone," the Vatican document warns.

The Vatican text reflects on the importance of the elderly's place in society. It insists that older people cannot be reduced to how productive or useful they are.

"The elderly remind us of the radical weakness of every human being, even when they are healthy, they remind us of the need to be loved and supported. In old age, losing all self-sufficiency, we beg for help," the note says.

Pope Francis has repeatedly urged young people to stay close to their grandparents, the document notes.

It added that "the aging man is not approaching the end, but the mystery of eternity; to understand it he needs to get close to God and to live in relationship with Him. Taking care of the spirituality of the elderly, of their need for intimacy with Christ and sharing of faith is a task of charity in the Church."

Pope Francis' recently designated the fourth Sunday of July as World Day of Prayer for Grandparents and the Elderly.

Sources

La Croix International

Vatican News

These crises have been caused by the coronavirus emergency, conflict and decreased security around the globe, Vatican cardinal , Peter Turkson says.

Echoing Pope Francis, Turkson is calling for a global ceasefire during the pandemic. This way, assistance can safely be provided to those in need. especially in countries with ongoing conflict like Yemen and Venezuela.

Turkson, who is the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, also says there is a critical need for disarmament.

The money used to finance arms should be redirected toward supporting healthcare systems instead, he suggests.

The various global crises plus the climate crisis mean "diminishing access to water, diminishing access to food, increasing social unrest, violence, breakdown of law and order, and unfortunately, the normalization of insecurity, distrust, and uncertainty," Turkson says.

"The confluence of all of these crises has engendered a veritable tsunami of humanitarian crises which has spread and spared no human life [or] institution from its disruptive consequences especially its impact on harmony and peace."

The Vatican COVID-19 Commission, which Turkson leads, includes two working groups, one of which is focusing on security, he says.

The strategies the Commission is using to appeal for a ceasefire include advocating for local peace and justice commissions, calling for reconciliation and global solidarity, and creating a "redefinition of peace."

Following the example of St. Pope John XXIII in the 1963 encyclical Pacem in terris, the Commission is framing peace in terms such as "food security," "solidarity," and an "inclusive public health system."

The Commission is also working with on-the-ground groups such as Caritas Internationalis and Sant'Egidio to help find peaceful resolutions to conflicts, Turkson says.

Sister Alessandra Smerilli, a member of the COVID-19 commission and an economics professor, spoke of the pope's request "to prepare the future and not only be prepared for the future."

Smerilli says the global economic recession is expected to displace billions of jobs. As "the pandemic knows no borders ... we need solutions without borders," she says.

The Commission's economic taskforce has been meeting each week to think about and discuss different economic issues connected to the pandemic.

Alessio Pecorario, another Commission member, says the security taskforce, which he coordinates, is the "network of the network."

He says taskforce members were working to bring together different experts and Catholic non-violence groups, to coordinate concrete proposals on the issue of peace and security.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: World Economic Forum

The "special Laudato si' anniversary year" is an initiative of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The Dicastery has organised events this week in the lead-up to the celebratory year, including several Zoom video-conferencing meetings with the Global Catholic Climate Movement.

"We hope that the anniversary year and the ensuing decade will indeed be a time of grace, a true Kairos experience and ‘Jubilee' time for the Earth, and for humanity, and for all God's creatures," the Dicastery says.

The initiatives, undertaken in partnership with other groups, have "a clear emphasis on ‘ecological conversion' in ‘action,'" it continued.

In the five years since Francis signed the encyclical, the Dicastery says it "appears ever more relevant," and given that the anniversary falls in the midst of the global pandemic, its "message is just as prophetic today as it was in 2015.

"The encyclical can indeed provide the moral and spiritual compass for the journey to create a more caring, fraternal, peaceful and sustainable world," the Dicastery comments.

In England Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who is the Archbishop of Westminster, is preparing for the celebrations. This week he published a video where he applauds "the great leadership of Pope Francis".

Nichols says the anniversary is an opportunity, "to reassess our relationship with our beautiful world".

Other English bishops have marked the upcoming anniversary - one with a special Mass which was live-streamed from England's Salford Cathedral, another praising the encyclical saying it is a "prophetic document that has given a theological and spiritual framework to the environmental crisis facing our world".

The official five-eyar anniversary celebrations organised by the Dicastery will begin on Sunday with a day of prayer for the earth and humanity. A prayer was written for the occasion which people are being encouraged to say at noon anywhere in the world.

In June, the Dicastery plans to release a document on "operation guidelines" for Laudato si'. On 18 June there will be a webinar marking the encyclical's release anniversary.

Other special projects this year will include new annual Laudato si' Awards, a documentary film on Laudato si', a tree initiative, and a social media "Read the Bible Contest,". In addition there will be and the ecumenical "Season of Creation" month which will run from the beginning of September to the beginning of October.

Next year, the Dicastery will begin a seven-year programme for families, dioceses, schools, and universities. The programme will work toward integral ecology through the lens of Laudato si'.

The anniversary year will conclude in 2021 with a conference, the launch of multi-year sustainability action plans, the performance of a musical work and the conferring of the first Laudato si' awards.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• The Tablet
• Image:Abouna.org

The conference is entitled "Drugs and addictions, an obstacle to integral human development."

Presentations will include best practices for treatment and prevention.

The Dicastery says almost five percent of the world's population has, at some point, taken drugs.

"29.6 million of those users suffer from drug disorders. This means that their drug-taking is harmful to the point that they experience drug dependence and require treatment."

The Dicastery says another cause for alarm is that society sees many drugs as a form of leisure, recreational activity and even as a sign of wealth and status. The implications of legalising various substances, including cannabis, is included in the conference agenda.

Professor Nicolò Pisanu, President of Pontifical Salesian University's Institute of Psychopedagogical and Social Sciences and head of the "Progetto Uomo" [Human Project] of the Italian Federation of Therapeutic Communities, says there has recently been a change in the world of science when it comes to drugs.

This has seen the term "substances" change to "dependencies."

Pisanu says the reason for this change is that the type of addictions themselves have changed, and that "with new dependencies such as gambling and the internet, you can't speak about substances anymore."

"They are phenomena that bring dependency" and, because of this, there has also been a change in the type of therapeutic treatments offered to addicts.

Pisanu says conference organisers chose "the most important, the most widespread, the most concerning" of the new addictions to be the focus of the conference.

These are gambling, sex, and the internet.

Speakers at the conference include Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Italian Health Minister Giulia Grillo.

Representatives from the World Federation against Drugs, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and the Carabinieri, one of Italy's police forces, are also presenting at the conference.

Source

• Crux Now
• Vatican News
• Image: Crux Now

The publication "Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones: Considerations for ethical discernment about some aspects of the current financial-economic system," is said to be an effort to give more theological weight to Pope Francis' criticisms that "this economy kills."

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development co-authored the document. Read more