On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development has, for the first time, issued a message signed by its Prefect, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, F.M.A., in which mental health is identified as a true pastoral priority. The full text can be found at the end of this article.
"No psychological wound can ever erase the dignity of the human person"
Drawing on Dilexi Te and Gaudium et Spes, the Prefect recalls that integral human development must embrace the person in all their dimensions: material, intellectual, moral, spiritual and religious. A development that forgets the mind and the heart is not integral development.
The message focuses on two urgent pastoral areas: mental health in contexts of humanitarian crisis (wars, forced migration, political instability, environmental disasters, structural poverty) and the mental health of young people, marked by new forms of emotional vulnerability linked to social pressure, economic uncertainty and isolation. The situations differ, but they share a common root: a person becomes vulnerable when security, relationships, meaning and hope are lacking.
A central passage of the message is devoted to listening: no one heals alone, and healing often begins at the moment a person feels truly heard. Hence the call for a pastoral approach that is stable, competent and preventive, bringing together the training of pastoral workers, collaboration with health professionals, clear referral pathways, suicide prevention and support for families.
Finally, the message underscores a decisive point: those who live with psychological suffering are not merely recipients of care but protagonists of their own journey, and their voice must help shape the responses. Caring for mental health, Sister Alessandra Smerilli concludes, is not a marginal issue but "belongs to the heart of the Church's mission."