Michel Roy, elected Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis
Caritas Internationalis has approved Michel Roy as its new secretary general for the
next four years. Caritas representatives chose Roy with a majority of votes during
the General Assembly on Thursday 26 May. Roy is currently international lobbying and
advocacy director for Secours Catholique (Caritas France). He will follow
Lesley-Anne Knight who was Caritas Internationalis secretary general from 2007-2011.
Speaking
to Vatican Radio immediately after the election, Roy praised the work of his predecessor:
“I am first of all grateful to the members of the confederation who elected me, to
succeed Lesley Ann Knight in this very important work that Caritas network is doing
in helping to change the life of the poor at grass-roots level as well as the global
level and my thoughts are going to the small Caritas organisations and to the new
ones, to those that are facing problems, who will be the priority of our work so that
the network is strong everywhere and able to carry out its mission”
Q: What
are the challenges for the years to come?
“The challenges are put in the
frame of the strategic plan that we have adopted here. Its about the reinforcement
of the humanitarian response of the Caritas network to the victims of man made or
natural disasters. Secondly the promotion and coordination of the integral human development
work which is the base of all Caritas organisations. How together we can reinforce
our work in animating the poor so that they can take their lives in their own hands
and move forwards. The third priority the third axis is around advocacy for a better
and more just world. We are facing with the crisis that we are going through now
major challenges and we see that the world is dominated by finance. We want to turn
that world upside down and put the human being back at the centre. The poor have
to be our inspiration for that. And the fourth priority is to improve and bring forth
the coordination, access and communication among the members, so that each member
participates in the promotion of the mission of the whole network”.
Roy will
serve as secretary general alongside Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga. Cardinal
Rodriguez from Honduras wasre-elected for a second term as Caritas Internationalis
president this week. Roy has thirty years experience working for Secours Catholique
in France. He began by working for the diocesan officein Paris in 1981. He has
worked on global governance, improvingdevelopment financing, promoting peace and lobbying
extractive industries throughmembership of the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (EITI)Governing Board and Coordinator of the French Publish What You Pay
initiative. Listen