ties with Muslims. The President of the commission is the ex officio Prefect of the Dicastery. Dicastery for Culture and Education The Dicastery for Culture and Education works for the development of human values in people within the horizon of Christian anthropology, contributing to the full realization of the following of Jesus Christ. The Dicastery is made up of the Section for Culture, which is dedicated to the promotion of culture, pastoral animation, and the valorization of the cultural patrimony, and the Section for Education, which develops the fundamental principles of education with reference to schools, higher institutes of Roman Catholic and ecclesiastical studies and research, and is competent for hierarchical appeals in these matters. The dicastery is formed through the merger of the Pontifical Council for Culture with the Congregation for Catholic Education. The current Prefect is José Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça. Section for Culture The Section for Culture promotes and sustains relations between the Holy See and the world of culture, confronting the many requests emerging from it and especially encouraging dialogue as an indispensable means of true encounter, reciprocal interaction and mutual enrichment, so that the various cultures may become increasingly open to the Gospel as well as the Christian faith in them, and so that lovers of the arts, literature and science, of technology and sport may know and feel recognized by the Church as persons at the service of the sincere search for truth, goodness and beauty. Section for Education The Section for Education collaborates with the diocesan/episcopal Bishops, the Bishops' Conferences and the Oriental Hierarchical Structures so that the fundamental principles of education, especially Roman Catholic Education, may be received and deepened so that they may be implemented contextually and culturally. It is competent to carry out the formalities necessary for the recognition by States of academic degrees granted in the name of the Holy See and to approve and erect Institutes of Higher Studies and other ecclesiastical academic institutions. Associated organizations Pontifical Work for Ecclesiastical Vocations The Pontifical Work for Ecclesiastical Vocations is tasked to promotes vocations to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. It is responsible to intensify the desire for promoting, safeguarding, and assisting ecclesiastical vocations; to disseminate an accurate notion of the dignity and necessity of the Roman Catholic priesthood; and to call the faithful of the whole world into a close union of prayers and pious exercises. The