Pope shakes up office that handles migration, COVID

Pope Francis on Thursday removed the head of the Vatican office that handles migration, the environment and COVID-19 issues, and put a trusted cardinal and one of the Holy See’s most influential nuns at the helm temporarily.

Francis thanked Cardinal Peter Turkson for his five years of service but decided on new leadership following the results of an internal investigation, the Vatican said.

Turkson, who until Thursday was the highest-ranking African person at the Holy See, told reporters earlier this week that he had submitted his resignation to Francis and that it was up to the pope to decide what to do with it.

Francis created the Dicastery for Integral Human Development in 2016 by merging four existing Vatican offices that handled migration issues, the Vatican’s charity work and its justice and peace initiatives. Turkson, a 73-year-old Ghanaian, was put in charge.

The office handles the dossiers closest to Francis' heart. It was responsible for some of the early drafts of his 2015 encyclical on the environment, was instrumental in the runup to his synod on the Amazon rainforest, and most recently has housed the pope's COVID-19 Commission, which aims to serve local churches in responding to the pandemic.

But in a sign Francis had other plans down the line, he decided in 2019 to make a cardinal out of one of Turkson’s deputies, Michael Czerny. It was a clear break from Vatican protocol that sees only one cardinal per Vatican office. Czerny, a Czech-born Canadian and a Jesuit like the pope, had been in charge of the office’s migration section and now takes over the whole operation as prefect, ad interim.

Working as his deputy will be Sister Alessandra Smerilli, an Italian economist who has spearheaded the Vatican’s COVID-19 response and is now one of the highest-profile women in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Earlier this year, Francis asked Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, a close ally, to conduct an internal investigation, known as a visitation, into the operations of the Human Development office. The results have not been released, and Francis has launched similar investigations of other Vatican offices that preceded shakeups.

Soon after Cupich’s report was delivered, Turkson’s two secretaries abruptly left office, one after he reached retirement age and the other to return to his home diocese in Argentina. No explanation was given.

The latest leadership change was announced on the day Francis delivered his usual tough-love Christmas greeting to members of the Vatican bureaucracy, demanding they show more humility and less pride in the coming year.

Francis made no mention in his speech about his plans for reforming the bureaucracy itself, of which the Dicastry for Integral Human Development is a key part.

Francis had been expected to release a reform blueprint this fall, but the document was not published. Presumably he decided not to name a permanent new head of Turkson's office pending the official release of the document.

Pope Francis made key appointments in his newly reformed Vatican bureaucracy Saturday, naming new deputies for the doctrine office and confirming the highest-ranked woman in the Holy See as the No. 2 in the development office.

The appointments are some of the first since Francis last month issued his long-awaited overhaul of the Vatican Curia, or bureaucracy, which acts as the central government for the 1.3-billion strong Catholic Church.

Francis promoted Irish Monsignor John Kennedy to head the discipline section of the newly named Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles clergy sexual abuse cases. In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Kennedy said the office had seen a “tsunami” of cases from parts of the world that had previously not reported any.

Joining him as secretary in the parallel doctrine section of the dicastery is Italian Monsignor Armando Matteo, currently the under-secretary in the office and professor of fundamental theology at Rome’s Pontifical Urbaniana University.

The powerful department is headed by Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, who at 78 could retire when his five-year term expires in July.

Francis also confirmed the new leadership of the Vatican office for human development, which groups together the Holy See’s departments responsible for refugees, the environment, charity as well as its COVID-19 response. Heading that office is Czech-born Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Jesuit like Francis who was recently dispatched by the pope to Ukraine and its border areas as a sign of solidarity with refugees fleeing the war.

His deputy is Italian Sister Alessandra Smerilli, an economist and the highest-ranked women at the Vatican in her role as secretary of the dicastery. Smerilli has taken on increasing responsibilities in the past two years after helping steer the Holy See’s response to the pandemic.

Both they and a third official confirmed Saturday, the Rev. Fabio Baggio, had been appointed on an interim basis after Francis removed key officials last year and more recently declined to renew the mandate of Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, who was recently appointed chancellor of the pontifical academies for sciences and social sciences.

After nine years of work, Francis issued his blueprint for the Vatican bureaucracy on March 19. For the first time it explicity allows for laypeople — including women — to head Vatican dicasteries, imposes once-renewable five-year term limits on some officials and gives institutional weight to his advisory panel on clergy sexual abuse by incorporating it into the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

An official in the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Emer McCarthy, welcomed Kennedy’s appointment, tweeting Saturday: “It’s a good day for #Safeguarding.”