Historic: Pope Francis appoints three women as consultants to Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith

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In a historic decision, Pope Francis has appointed three women—two Italians and one Belgian—as consultants to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as part of his ongoing effort to give a greater role to women in the work of the Roman Curia offices, the central administration of the Catholic church.

The Vatican announced today, April 21, that Francis has named three women and two priests as consultants to the C.D.F. The three women are Dr. Linda Ghisoni, undersecretary for “the section for the lay faithful” in the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life; Prof. Michelina Tenace, who teaches theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome; and Prof. Laetitia Calmeyn, who teaches theology at the Collège des Bernardins, Paris. The two priests are the Rev. Sergio Paolo Bonanni, who teaches theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and Manuel Jesús Arroba Conde, C.M.F., a Claretian and president of the Institute of Both Jurisdictions (civil and canon law) at the Lateran University in Rome.

All Vatican congregations and pontifical councils have consultants who are appointed by the pope. The role of a consultant in the Roman Curia is to give advice or opinions on questions that need to be resolved or to be studied. It is an advisory role, meant to give breadth and focus to a given question. Consultants have long played an important role in the C.D.F.; for example, they have often been called on to give their opinion on a book or an article written by theologians that may have raised questions of doctrine.

…In what L’Osservatore Romano called “a historic decision,” this morning’s appointments mark the first time ever that women or laity have been appointed as consultants to the C.D.F., the oldest and most powerful of the nine Vatican congregations. Originally erected in 1542 by Pope Paul III to deal with cases of heresy and schism, its competence was redefined by John Paul II in 1998 “to promote and defend the doctrine of the faith and its traditions in all of the Catholic world.”

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