The new members of the International Theological Commission includes six women and scholars from across five continents, several of whom have publicly dissented from settled Church teaching.
Pope Leo XIV has appointed 24 new members to the International Theological Commission (ITC), each of them scholars in various fields, including biblical studies, patristics, dogmatics and moral theology, but with some publicly holding views that conflict with established Church teaching, such as on women’s ordination and the theology of salvation.
Founded by Pope Paul VI in 1969, the ITC’s role is to advise the pope, the Holy See and the wider Church on major and emerging doctrinal questions. The appointees — taken from a list provided by the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández — will serve on the commission for renewable five-year terms.
According to an EWTN News report, Pope Leo has asked the new ITC members and six returnees to focus on the topics of Tradition and enculturation of the faith over their term.
Capuchin Franciscan and systematic theologian Father Thomas Weinandy, who served as a member of the commission from 2014 to 2019, told the Register that the ITC “plays a valuable role in enriching theological reflection and informing theologians and the educated laity.”
He added that the body “does not have any direct impact on the work of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, but its contributions can be referred to in future documents. Its main goal is to foster deeper understanding and informed discussion within the Church.”
Notable Newcomers
Among the most notable newcomers are French Jesuit Father Michel Fédou, a leading patristics scholar and dogmatic theologian who was awarded the Ratzinger Prize in 2022. He is professor emeritus of the Faculté de Théologie of the Facultés Loyola in Paris and a member of the Groupe des Dombes, a forum of Catholic and Protestant theologians.
Also among the prominent appointments is Jesuit Father Paul Béré from Burkina Faso. He currently serves as dean of the Pontifical Biblical Institute’s Biblical Faculty in Rome and in 2019 became the first African to receive the Ratzinger Prize. He was appointed an expert of the Synod on Synodality and helped draft its instrumentum laboris in 2024.
Greek Melkite Father Khaled Anatolios, John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, is another new addition to the commission. Noted for his work on St. Athanasius, the Nicene tradition and the development and meaning of Trinitarian doctrine, Father Anatolios praised Pope Francis on the day he died for his efforts to “articulate a hermeneutics of mercy that affirms fundamental Church teaching in principle while also striving to interpret and apply this doctrine with pastoral compassion.”
Women Appointees
Six women also join the theological commission, exceeding the number Pope Francis appointed in 2021 by one. They include Scottish patristics professor Sara Parvis, who lectures at the University of Edinburgh and is an expert on the Arian controversies after Nicaea.
Despite Church teaching that the sacramental ordination of women as deacons is not possible, in 2024 she wrote an article in The Tablet in favor of it and, in a letter to the same publication, Parvis said women should be able to confer extreme unction on a sick person, adding that she had no problem with women dressed in clerical collars and cassocks.
Another controversial appointee is Chilean lay theologian Claudia Leal Luna, ordinary professor at the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II for the Sciences of Marriage and Family in Rome and a consultant to the DDF since September 2024. In 2021, Leal publicly criticized a Responsum ad dubium issued by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Cardinal Fernández’s predecessor as prefect of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which declared that the Church has no power to bless same-sex unions.
According to the Spanish Catholic news site InfoVaticana, Leal criticized the Vatican ruling’s anthropology as “somewhat taxidermic,” adding that it left “a bitter taste in a great many people’s mouth” and came as an “epistemological shock.” The dicastery’s contested 2023 declaration on same-sex blessings, Fiducia Supplicans, was widely viewed as a repudiation of that ruling, which Cardinal Fernández had described as “negative.”
The new women members are also joined by Anne-Sophie Vivier-Muresan, a French Catholic theologian and social anthropologist, who is the first woman and first lay dean of the Theological Faculty of the Institut Catholique de Paris in its 135-year history.
Her principal fields are dogmatic and Trinitarian theology, contemporary Orthodox theology, theology of religions, interreligious dialogue — especially Christian–Muslim dialogue — and religious anthropology, including Shi‘ism and Eastern Christian communities. Her work affirms Christian witness and the free conversion of Muslims, but advocates a dialogical, non-coercive theology of encounter rather than an explicit call to conversion.
German-Language Theologians
Other new commission appointees include Jesuit Father Bernhard Knorn, a professor of dogmatics at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt. A well-established ecclesiologist and ecumenist who is a strong proponent of synodality, in 2024, Father Knorn was one of three speakers who said at a synodal committee in Mainz that they saw a close intertwinement between the Second Vatican Council and the Church’s synodal process, including the German Synodal Way.
Another German-language dogmatic theologian appointed to the commission is Jan-Heiner Tück, head of the Fachbereich Dogmatik und Dogmengeschichte of the University of Vienna. A regular columnist for major newspapers, Tück recently welcomed signs of a Catholic revival in Europe, saying the Church needs to be creative in bringing “the great treasure of the tradition of faith” into society.
He is a firm proponent of synodality as listening and consultation, but has criticized the German Synodal Way for aiming to take away governing authority from bishops. Tück is a proponent of married priests, but has firmly rejected calls for women’s ordination. Similarly, he supported footnote 351 in Amoris Laetitia allowing access to the Eucharist for some civilly-remarried-and-divorced Catholics (he believes the dubia were “subversive”), but opposes proposals for Protestant spouses to receive Communion at Catholic Masses. He has called for a clarification of the relationship between the Society of St. Pius X and the Vatican and sees the society as “more papal than the Pope.” The Council texts are binding, he contends, and has warned against the proximity of traditionalist circles to politically right-wing circles.
Further Appointments
Boyd Taylor Coolman, an American specialist in medieval theology at Boston College also joins the commission. An expert in the theology of the early 12th and 13th centuries, with a focus on the Victorine and early Franciscan tradition and the emergence of scholastic theology, Coolman recently wrote an article for America magazine on the benefits of a medieval understanding of AI.
Also appointed is Spanish dogmatic theologian Father Ángel Cordovilla Pérez, who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome and is the first non-Jesuit dean of the Pontifical University of Comillas in its 120-year history. An expert in salvation, contemporary theology, and the works of Karl Rahner, he has defended a theology capable of responding to current challenges, according to InfoVaticana, highlighting the importance of synodal and contextual theological reflection.
Brazilian Father Tiago de Fraga Gomes, assistant professor at the Escola de Humanidades of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, co-wrote a paper in 2025 praising Amoris Laetitia, large parts of which were ghost written by Cardinal Fernández, as “the mature fruit of an ecclesial process” initiated by the Second Vatican Council, adding that it serves as an “impetus” for updating the conciliar reform “necessary in the synodal journey of the Church in the 21st century.”
In an article published in January, Father Gomes wrote that “no historical religion is absolute” and that the singularity of Jesus “cannot be absolutized to the point of excluding other religions,” contradicting the teaching of the 2000 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document Dominus Iesus.
Other appointments are two professors from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires, where Cardinal Fernández served as rector from 2009 to 2018. They are Fabricio Leonel Forcat, an associate professor at the university’s faculty of theology, and Dominican Jorge Scampini, a full professor of the same faculty who has served three terms on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.
An Italian appointee is Msgr. Carlo Dell’Osso, secretary of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, who has been on a steady path of promotion since 2018, when Pope Francis elevated him to monsignor. A professor of patristics, in 2024, Francis appointed him a consultor to the DDF under Cardinal Fernández.
Other new members of the commission include Father Clarence Devadass, director of the Catholic Research Centre in Kuala Lumpur, who was one of several drafters of the final document of the 2024 Synod on Synodality, and Msgr. Lubomir Žák, a Slovak-born priest and prominent advocate of ecumenical engagement who has defended the legacy of Vatican II against ideological readings, saying he believes the Council shows the mercy of the Good Samaritan to a wounded world.
The new members come from five continents, with most hailing from Europe (10), followed by Africa (4), Asia (4), North America (3), and South America (3).
