At the Angelus on 6 October, Fr Fabio Baggio CS was named by Pope Francis among the new Cardinals. The Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (DPIHD) and Director of Borgo Laudato si’ and the Laudato si’ Centre for Higher Education, will receive the purple from the hands of the Holy Father during the Ordinary Public Consistory on Saturday, December 7, 2024.
The following day, he will concelebrate the Eucharist with the new Cardinals in St. Peter's Basilica on Sunday, December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
Finally, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, Cardinal Michael Czerny, will confer Episcopal Ordination on Fr. Baggio on Saturday, January 11, 2025, in the Chapel of the Scalabrini Missionary Center in Bassano del Grappa (VI).
With these words, Pope Francis announced on Sunday, October 6, the names of the 21 new cardinals from various parts of the world: “I am happy to announce that I will hold a Consistory for the creation of new Cardinals. Their origin expresses the universality of the Church, which continues to proclaim God's merciful love for all people on earth. The inclusion of the new Cardinals in the Diocese of Rome, moreover, manifests the inseparable bond between the See of Peter and the particular Churches spread throughout the world”.
It was unexpected news for Fr. Baggio, who declared in a video produced by the DPIHD: “a big surprise, a very beautiful surprise to be sure. There was also a sense of deep unworthiness that came over me. Why did the Holy Father choose me for this important task? Then, slowly and thanks to the conversation that I was able to have with the Holy Father a few days later, I began to understand that this call came directly from him. I see it as a sort of confirmation – let's say – of the responsibilities that I have been assigned to during these last few years, carrying them out at his service”.
The Undersecretary also expressed his gratitude to the Holy Father for “the trust granted” and affirmed that “this appointment is a great responsibility, but also an opportunity to continue to serve the Church closely, starting from her heart to reach out to the peripheries.”
“Among the various tasks that the Holy Father has entrusted to me, what immediately comes to mind is my first assignment at the Roman Curia. Along with Cardinal Czerny, we were responsible for the ex Migrants and Refugees Section and immediately began to work in this field, which is a fairly complex area, aiming to assess migratory flows, and interpreting the different existing policies and in particular the challenges that churches currently need to address both the local Churches and the universal Church on contemporary migratory flows”, he said.
Fr. Baggio acknowledged that “today these challenges have increased. We first began this work in 2017. Since then these challenges have become even more complex, especially because of new phenomena that have emerged, new humanitarian crises, new conflicts that have occurred, but above all climate change, which is now causing migrations and massive displacements of populations in many different parts of the world”.