Nadine Dilong An unexpected partnership between the Vatican and the Global Wellness Institute was announced.
Amid the global COVID-19 crisis, the focus on health and the need for wellness has never been stronger — even the Vatican has now officially acknowledged the potential and importance of the wellness industry.
In early April, Pope Francis announced a new COVID-19 commission focused not only on confronting the current crisis but also to visualise the world we need to build post-virus. The future of health and wellness is a key pillar of the Vatican initiative (in addition to ecology, economics and public security), and the Global Wellness Institute has been selected to provide a series of eight white papers proposing how a holistic concept of wellness could transform human life, including our workplaces, our built environment and our mental wellbeing.
“We are deeply honored by the opportunity to contribute to this important Vatican initiative. Wellness is a vital concept to reset the world after COVID-19. Not only does wellness link mind, body, and spirit, it connects our individual self with community and planetary wellbeing and to our personal search for meaning, purpose and transcendence,” said Katherine Johnson and Ophelia Yeung, GWI’s senior researchers and directors of the Vatican project.
Pope Francis created the Vatican’s COVID-19 commission to “express the Church’s love for the entire human family during the pandemic” and because he’s convinced that we’re living through “a time of epochal change” and have an unprecedented opportunity to reflect on how to solve the socioeconomic, environmental and health challenges looming in our future. The commission is led by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (DPIHD); coordinated by Cardinal Peter Turkson (DPIHD Prefect), Mons. Bruno-Marie Duffé (Secretary), and Fr. Augusto Zampini (Adjunct Secretary); and divided into five working groups, each addressing a different aspect of the pandemic.
GWI’s white papers for the Vatican integrate facts, data, and best practices; employ interdisciplinary thinking; and are a call to action, recommending strategies that could help “reset” the world post-pandemic — with a new focus on prevention and a proactive wellness-based mindset. Eight papers will be published; three are available now with the rest aimed to be published weekly from now until mid-June.
This collaboration reflects the interesting state religion is in at the moment, with more and more people rejecting traditional religion, but embracing spirituality of all kinds, often deeply connected to physical and mental exercise, such as yoga or meditation.
What do you think about ‘spiritual wellness’? Let us know in the comments.
