The Populorum Progressio Foundation has been discontinued, but the mission continues

Catarina Agurelius – Vatican

The Populorum Progressio Foundation of the Dicastery for Sustainable Human Development was dissolved and entrusted, with the same name, to CELAM. This appears in a letter that went into effect on September 16, 2022 with its publication in Osservatore Romano And an official comment from Acta Apostolicae Sedis. Pope Francis explains his motives in his book SpeechOn the same day for the members of the Foundation’s Board of Directors Mgr. Caprigos, President of CELAM and Sister Alessandra Smirelli, Secretary of the Directorate of Sustainable Human Development.

With the desire to support the development of projects to remain an expression of the Pope’s charitable foundation, but not having a center in the Roman Curia and also in the name of simplification, I have entrusted CELAM with the task of assisting us in the analysis of projects and their implementation. Directorate very durable Human Development will retain responsibility for managing the fund that will be associated with the work of this task.

Population progress in development

The letter specifies that the Pope made the decision, according to paragraph 1 can. 120 of the canon law, at a September 7 hearing of the directorate’s governor, Michael Czerny, who assigned him the task of drawing up the regulations for the new fund. This was how Paul VI expressed his wish in 1969, two years after writing the Encyclical Population progressTo help poor farmers and promote agrarian reform, social justice and peace in Latin America under the supervision of the bishops of the continent. In 1992, Giovanni Paolo II laid the foundation as “an act of solidarity of the Church’s love for those who have been abandoned and most in need of protection, such as the indigenous, mestizo, and African American peoples.” Thirty years later, Pope Francis chose to introduce it as part of the reform of the Roman Curia which was expressed in Bible Backing Speaking to the board of directors, he says this entails “a series of necessary changes”.

An institution with the same mission

The Pope expresses his gratitude to those who have worked during these 30 years with the institution, which he says is now “changing its shape”. He stressed that the new fund “preserves its message and remains the Pope’s charity.” The Pope explains that “many families in Latin America and the Caribbean live in inhuman conditions” and that the recent Aparecida document speaks of excluded peoples, “who are not only “exploited,” but “dispossessed.” The Pope asserts that CELAM, who does not Still under development, it provides an opportunity to “hear the cries of the poor” while the Amazon complex has led to the realization of the exclusion in which indigenous peoples and people of African descent live. And the Pope adds, quoting from his encyclical Fratelli Tottithat “in the face of the various present-day ways in which one eliminates or ignores others” it is necessary “to interact with a new dream of brotherhood and social friendship, which is not limited to words.”

As we walk the Synod Way, we must grow as a “Samaritan” church, that comforts and shares and bows down to touch the wounds of the suffering body of Christ in people. He wanted to identify with the poorest and most marginalized people, offering us his merciful presence in them.

Actively involve the poor

The Pope hopes that “solidarity initiatives will show that it is possible to make changes and that reality is not dead-end” and that they are implemented with wisdom and consistency to motivate many. He stresses that indigenous peoples should participate in projects that interest them.

The poor should not be seen as recipients of charitable work, but should take an active role in discerning the most pressing needs.

One family next to the family

For the Pope, it is important to break free from “the mentality of symbiosis, which widens the gap between those called to form one family”. Finally, the Pope once again thanks the defunct institution as well as the international bodies that cooperated with it and encourages them to continue this work. And he prays that the motherly love and tenderness of the Virgin Mary may lead them to “stand close to the poorest and the forgotten, whom God certainly does not forget.”