Pope Francis Gives Sr. Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, Another Important Post in the Roman Curia
(ANS - Vatican City – March 25, 2021) – On March 24 Pope
Francis appointed Sr. Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, undersecretary for the Faith
and Development Sector of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human
Development. She commented: “I feel grateful to the Holy Father and to the
prefect of my dicastery, Cardinal Turkson, to all those who work in the
dicastery who show trust in me. I hope to be able to do my part.”
Yesterday’s appointment is only the most recent important task
that the Holy Father entrusts to religious of the Salesian Family. Sr.
Smerilli, who holds a PhD in political economy from La Sapienza University of
Rome and a PhD in economics from East Anglia University in Norwich, England, is
full professor of political economy at the Auxilium Pontifical School of
Education in Rome, the Salesian Sisters’ university. In the last two years,
Pope Francis has also appointed her as a councilor of the Vatican City State, consultor
of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, as well as coordinator of
the Economics Task Force of the Vatican Commission for Covid-19.
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development was
established by Pope Francis on January 1, 2017, and “promotes integral human
development by drawing inspiration from the Gospel and in the wake of the
theology and social doctrine of the Church.... Integrating, relating, and making
the various social systems dialogue with each other – such as economy, finance,
work, politics, culture – the Dicastery works to ensure that the Church’s
social teaching is made known and put into practice. “
Sr. Smerilli already knows the Dicastery well because it is
where she had come to work as coordinator of the Economics Task Force for
Covid-19. “Working here, I understood how beautiful this mission of the
Dicastery is and how much it reaches the whole world,” she told Vatican News.
Working in that Task Force, Sr. Smerilli also learned that “there
is a need for a lot of listening to local realities and the problems that are caused
by this crisis.” But at the same time, “as a Church we also have the duty to
raise the tone of the debate, to inspire visions, not to focus only on what to
do, even if we need to work on concreteness, but to have a perspective.”
Looking at this new role, she believes that her task is to “translate,
in pastoral terms, what the economic knowledge and skills are” and therefore
hopes to “collaborate with everyone to bring together the Gospel and the
economy.”
And to those who point out to her that with her appointment the
number of women with important positions in the Roman Curia increases, Sr.
Smerilli replies: “God created man in His image, male and female He created
them, and therefore this wants to say that male and female is the image of God,
of a God who is communion. This vocation of alliance and reciprocity must be
carried out not only in the family sphere but in all other areas of life, even
in the workplace.”
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