Pope appoints three women to CDF

Source: Vatican Media

Pope Francis has appointed three women as consultants to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican announced on Saturday.

The three women are: Dr Linda Ghisoni, undersecretary for 'the section for the lay faithful' in the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life; Professor Michelina Tenace, who teaches theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome; and Professor Laetitia Calmeyn, who teaches theology at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris.

Two priests were also appointed: Fr Sergio Paolo Bonanni, who teaches theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and Fr Manuel Jesús Arroba Conde, CMF president of the Institute of Both Jurisdictions (civil and canon law) at the Lateran University in Rome.

Until this papacy, consultants of all the nine Vatican congregations have always been men. Last January, Pope Francis broke with tradition, appointing two women to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments: Professor Donna Orsuto and Dr Valeria Trapani.

The CDF was established in 1542 by Pope Paul III to deal with cases of schism and heresy. In 1998, St John Paul II revised its work 'to promote and defend the doctrine of the faith and its traditions in all of the Catholic world.'