Top photo caption: Pope Leo XIV has appointed three U.S.-based consultors, all with ties to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, pictured, to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. OSV News photo/Chaz Muth
By Simone Orendain, OSV News
OSV News — Pope Leo XIV has appointed three U.S.-based consultors, all with ties to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. They are among a dozen newly named consultors to the Vatican department created by Pope Francis in 2016.
The Holy See Press Office on Aug. 18 announced the appointments of the 12 including Father Emmanuel Katongole, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame; Kathryn Koch, president and CEO of the Los Angeles-based international investment firm TCW; and Clemens Sedmak, director of Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
The dicastery supports the Church’s work 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. Obstacles in all of these areas are to be addressed, according to the Church, in order to nurture human flourishing.
The consultors help to bolster the dicastery for five-year terms. They are assigned “from among the faithful who are distinguished by their expertise, proven ability and prudence,” according to guidelines set in 2022.
Father Katongole, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kampala, Uganda, recently became director of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at Notre Dame. He joined its faculty in January 2013 specializing in politics and violence in sub-Saharan Africa, political theology, global Catholicism and other related areas. Before going to Notre Dame, he was associate professor of theology and world Christianity at Duke University’s Divinity School. He received a doctorate in Philosophy from Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and was ordained to the priesthood in 1987.
In announcing his appointment to the Ansari Institute, Mary Gallagher, the Marilyn Keough Dean of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, where Father Katongole teaches theology and peace studies, said he has “a deep commitment to integral human development.”
Koch has led TCW, also known as Trust Company of the West, since 2023. Prior to joining TCW, she spent 20 years in the asset management division of Goldman Sachs, where her most recent position was chief investment officer. In that role, she managed the company’s $300 billion public equity business and was a member of the asset management division’s executive committee. Koch serves on the board of trustees of Notre Dame, her alma mater. She completed a bachelor’s degree in English and Economics at the university in 2002, graduating magna cum laude.
Sedmak is a professor of social ethics at Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and specializes in Catholic social tradition, poverty, philosophy of religion and other related areas. He also teaches at Notre Dame’s Institute for Social Concerns. Sedmak has doctoral degrees in philosophy, theology and social theory, and he taught moral and social theology at King’s College in London before going to Notre Dame. He also held multiple positions at University of Salzburg in his native Austria.
The Nanovic Institute for European Studies, under Sedmak’s direction, has a mission to “strengthen Notre Dame’s presence in Europe, deepen the understanding of Europe within the Notre Dame community, and contribute to academic discourse and research on European studies.”
Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.
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