– Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas has been appointed the head of Francis” new “mega-dicastery’ for laity, family, and life – a decision that marks the second major appointment of an American to a Vatican position this summer.
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Francis also formally created the new office, the Dicastery for the Laity, Families and Life Wednesday, combining several Vatican offices into one.
Pope Francis first announced his intention to establish a new Vatican department dedicated to laity, family, and life during the October 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family.
In a related appointment Wednesday, Francis named the former head of the Vatican’s office for family matters, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, to lead the Vatican’s bioethics think tank and marriage institute.
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The dicastery is likely to be a crucial battleground in the implementation of the Pope’s family document, Amoris Laetitia, which is coming under fire from traditional Catholics for being too woolly on moral issues such as whether the divorced and remarried can receive communion. Please see our terms of service for more information.
“Each of us must resist the temptation to choose a particular teaching of the church as the touchstone of our orthodoxy while disregarding others as less important”, Farrell wrote in a 2013 blog post.
“At a time when our Holy Father is calling the attention of the whole church to the role of the laity and the importance of a robust, pastoral activity and support of family and married life through the establishment of this new dicastery to focus and coordinate this work, the leadership that Bishop Farrell brings will be a blessing for all of us”, the cardinal said.
Farrell seems very much on message with Francis on some key issues.
When the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal nationwide past year, Farrell wrote that the church would never accept gay marriage, but also emphasized that gays and lesbians should be treated with respect and compassion.
The creation of this new office is part of Francis’ attempt to reform the Roman Curia, meaning the government of the Catholic Church.
Bishop Kevin Farrell is the brother of Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
Both brothers were ordained as members of the Legionaries of Christ but, citing “differences of opinion,” the younger Farrell left before that order – founded by the late Mexican priest the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado – was engulfed in a financial and sexual abuse scandal.
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The 68-year-old Farrell was born in Ireland but moved to the United States in 1984 where he served in the Archdiocese of Washington and appointed to Dallas in 2007.
