Pope Leo XIV has appointed this Thursday the Angolan Jesuit Avelino Chicoma Bundo Chico and the Chilean professor Claudia Leal Luna as undersecretaries of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, according to the Holy See. With both appointments, the leadership transition at the organization, which began in mid-year, is completed, and the positions left vacant when Cardinal Fabio Baggio was appointed pro-prefect and Monsignor Jozef Barlaš was promoted to secretary are filled, according to Vatican News.
A Jesuit who was already heading an office of the dicastery
Avelino Chicoma Bundo Chico was born on July 15, 1979, in Lobito, Angola, and entered the Society of Jesus in 2002. He was ordained a priest in 2014 and made his perpetual profession in 2026. He has held a licentiate in Social Morality since 2018 and a doctorate since 2019 in Contemporary International Migration and Development Cooperation.
He has worked at the dicastery since 2020, where he served as regional coordinator for Africa until 2022 and then as head of the “Listening and Dialogue” section until 2025. Since that year, he had been serving as office head, so he assumes the position of undersecretary from within the organization itself. Upon learning of the appointment, he summarized his new mission in three words: “presence, commitment, and witness.”
A moral theologian, member of the International Theological Commission
Claudia Leal Luna was born on December 12, 1977, and holds a degree in Legal and Social Sciences from the University of Chile since 2001. She later earned her licentiate in 2008 and her doctorate in 2012 in Moral Theology at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome. Between 2012 and 2022, she was a faculty member at the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, according to Vatican News, and since 2022 she has been a full professor at the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II for the Sciences of Marriage and Family in Rome.
She is also a consultant to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and a member of the International Theological Commission, to which she was appointed on October 19. Her appointment places a laywoman in the second level of responsibility of a dicastery of the Curia.
The transition at the dicastery
The organization is led by the Salesian religious Alessandra Smerilli, who was promoted to prefect on June 30 after serving as secretary. Alongside her, Cardinal Baggio, a Scalabrinian religious, serves as pro-prefect, and Barlaš holds the secretariat.
The dicastery itself, through its official account, congratulated the two new undersecretaries and wished them the best fruits in their work, on behalf of the entire team.