Women to the fore at the Vatican’s Theological Commission

Pope Francis has appointed five women to the International Theological Commission, a record number that brings the percentage of women on the 30-member body to 16, or a proportion of one sixth.

Oct 01, 2014

VAATICAN: Pope Francis has appointed five women to the International Theological Commission, a record number that brings the percentage of women on the 30-member body to 16, or a proportion of one sixth.

The five women are Australian Professor Tracey Rowland, Moira Mary McQueen, a Canadian-British bioethicist, Marianne Schlosser, of Germany, and two nuns: US Sr Prudence Allen and Sr Alenka Arko of Slovenia-Russia.

Pope Francis last year said the Church needed "to develop a profound theology of women".

Members will serve for a five-year term on the commission, which advises the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on theological issues.

Women have served on the panel since 2004, but never more than two at a time.

The Vatican said the new appointees were “a sign of growing female involvement in theological research” and came from a diverse ecclesial provenance in relation to their religious status and the particular charisms they represent.

Professor Rowland is dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne and a biographer of Pope Benedict XVI, while Professor Allen has publicly criticised the American nuns who backed the Obama Government’s health-care mandate, parts of which the Church has fought against. Professor McQueen is author of Changing emphases in the concept of responsible parenthood in Roman Catholic magisterial teaching since "Casti connubii", 1930.

Other new members include Bonn Professor Fr Karl-Heinz Menke, who is part of Pope Benedict XVI’s circle of doctoral students, the Schulerkreis, and Fr Thomas Weinandy, who supported the Vatican’s investigation into the main umbrella body for nuns in the US, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Another new member, Belgian Jesuit Professor Bernard Pottier, is an expert on Kant and agnosticism.--The Tablet

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