On March 30, Leo XIV appointed a new group of members to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, including bishops, clergy, religious figures, and lay academics.
All of them are closely aligned with the priorities of the Francis era, such as mass immigration, "synodality", social justice, inculturation, and ecology.
Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera López of Monterrey, Mexico
Monsignor Cabrera publicly aligned himself with the pro-homosexual document Fiducia Supplicans. According to AciDigital.com (23 January 2024), he urged Catholics to read the document in a spirit of mercy and called for “affective and effective communion” with Pope Francis and his pastoral proposals .
In his capacity as president of the Mexican bishops’ conference, he was also involved in submitting the "Mayan rite" to the Vatican for approval.
Auxiliary Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera of Cusco, Peru
Monsignor Estrada is the General Secretary of CELAM, the Latin American Bishops’ Council. In July 2024, he referred to migrants as “suffering Christs,” as reported by NCR Online.
He also stated that it is incoherent to receive Holy Communion while refusing to recognise Christ in migrants: “You can’t kneel in front of the Eucharist… and not also see that same God in the migrant.”
He was chosen as a Synod delegate and is closely associated with the Latin American episcopal current shaped by synodality, social doctrine, Amazon, and the pastoral language of the Francis era.
Fr Daniel G. Groody
Fr. Groody is a "theologian of migration" at the University of Notre Dame. In America Magazine (February 2011), he reinterpreted the Incarnation through the lens of migration: "God… migrated to our human race… so that we… migrate back to God."
In the same essay, he criticised what he described as "sterile intellectualism, lobotomized fundamentalism, obsessive rubricism, and privatized pietism."
He believes that migrants are “living icons of Christ”
His approach develops a theological framework in which migration becomes a central interpretive key, especially in his book A Theology of Migration: The Bodies of Refugees and the Body of Christ.
Meghan J. Clark
Meghan J. Clark, a professor at St. John’s University in New York, is a Catholic moral theologian specialising in social ethics and human rights.
As early as 2011, she implicitly defended homosexual 'marriage' in a comment on CatholicMoralTheology.com: "I agree that the family is central to the Church, but how exactly does gay marriage become the primary threat to families in society?"
She also served as assistant coordinator for the North American working group of the synodal project Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries, which involved theologians listening to marginalised groups, including homosexuals. The 2022 report produced by this group included testimonies sharply critical of Church teaching, such as: “You have to change church teaching on sexuality… It’s from the Middle Ages,” and: “The Church… speaking in such a harsh, derogatory, dehumanizing way to gay Catholics… defiles Jesus.”
In a 2019 America Magazine article, she wrote regarding hormonal birth control that “this medicine has both licit and illicit uses within Catholic moral theology” and emphasised the importance of respecting women’s conscience.
Dylan Mason Corbett
Dylan Mason Corbett is a Catholic migration advocate and executive director of the Hope Border Institute, focusing on policy issues at the U.S.-Mexico border.
He previously worked with the Vatican’s Migrants and Refugees Section and remains active in Church-linked migration advocacy networks.
His public interventions consistently criticise asylum restrictions.
Christine Nathan
Christine Nathan is president of the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), based in Geneva, and operates within global migration policy frameworks, including UN-linked processes.
In a September 2025 keynote, she stated called for the “reform of migration laws so they are not about exclusion”.
Carlos A. Nobre
Carlos A. Nobre is a Brazilian climate alarmist affiliated with the University of São Paulo. His research on the Amazon has been incorporated into Church ecological discussions, particularly in connection with the Amazon Synod and related initiatives.
In The Guardian (June 2025), he warned that “we are perilously close to the point of no return.” In the Financial Times (November 2025), he stated that if current trends continue, “the Amazon will reach the point of no return by 2050 at the latest.”
He has also linked Amazon degradation to broader global risks, including epidemics and pandemics.
The new African members have a lower profile online, but their areas of work reflect similar emphases on social justice, ecology, and development.
Archbishop Fulgence Muteba Mugalu of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, is president of the national bishops’ conference and is known for his outspoken positions on social justice.
Rampeoane Hlobo, S.J. is director of the Jesuit Justice and Ecology Network Africa, focusing on ecological advocacy and development.
Sister Linah Siabana works on safeguarding issues, particularly addressing abuse of women religious and institutional silence.
Léocadie Wabo Lushombo is a Congolese Catholic theologian and professor of theological ethics at Santa Clara University, whose work focuses on social justice, women’s dignity, and African contextual theology.
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