Pope Leo XIV has appointed Rev. Daniel Groody, CSC, 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 announced today.
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.
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 University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, CSC.
“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. 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,” Father Dowd said. “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 Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, as a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture by Pope St. John Paul II in 1983.
“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.”
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, Kellogg faculty fellow 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 an introduction written by Pope Francis and received first-place recognition from the Catholic Press Association.
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.
This article originally published at news.nd.edu.
Photograph courtesy of Vatican Media.