The International Theological Commission: A Reboot - Is It a Compromise Between Pope Leo and Cardinal Fernández?
by Serre Verweij
The International Theological Commission, an important auxiliary body linked to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has undergone its customary membership renewal, which occurs every five years. This time, however, it does so while Cardinal Fernández remains officially its Prefect.
According to the Commission's statutes, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith proposes the candidates, whom the Pope then appoints. A certain degree of influence by Fernández is therefore unavoidable. The question now is to what extent Pope Leo appears to be constraining him.
The six persons who received renewed mandates include the Commission's secretary, Archbishop Piero Coda — a moderate progressive who has spoken extensively of synodality and expanded roles for women in the Church, without calling for doctrinal change — and Sister Josée Ngalula from Africa, who strongly opposes homosexuality while supporting the ordination of women to the diaconate. The remainder are the mainstream figures Father Alberto Cozzi and Father Simon Francis Gaine (a Thomist), together with two orthodox members: Professor Reinhard Huetter and Sister Isabell Naumann.
The twenty-four new members constitute a markedly uneven composition.
A Handful of Radical Modernists
Cardinal Fernández appears to have secured the appointment of a few fellow radicals, but only a very few — three to four clearly problematic choices.
Claudia Leal Luna, from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family (following that institution's takeover by radical modernists), stands out as the most concerning appointment, specifically on matters of sexual ethics. She has championed a modernist pastoral approach grounded in Amoris Laetitia while formally declining to reject Catholic doctrine, and she has worked to undermine the 2021 Vatican Responsum that rejected the blessing of homosexual unions.
Luna is the only new member known to have flirted with LGBT advocacy. Sara Parvis from Scotland, however, appears to be the most openly dissident voice on the question of female ordination. While she has not called explicitly for female priests, she has defended an ordained female diaconate as a genuinely distinct possibility — a position that the Church largely settled in the negative under Francis.
The Brazilian theologian Tiago de Fraga Gomes has rightly been criticized for his embrace of religious pluralism, including the claim that no "historical religion" is absolute — a position difficult to reconcile with the Catholic teaching on the uniqueness of Christ as Savior.
These three stand out as particularly poor choices, though they remain, thankfully, a small minority.
Enablers of Modernism
A few figures with more obscure intellectual profiles have so far largely escaped scrutiny. They are not themselves open activists on key doctrinal questions, but their expressed views on pastoral care or canon law suggest that they are likely sympathizers with, or fellow travelers of, more programmatic modernists.
The Spaniard Ángel Cordovilla, Dean of Theology at the Pontifical University Comillas in Madrid, has spoken of how Francis helped him to move beyond "rigidity" — a remark whose implications are quite suggestive and may explain why Fernández would have wished to see him appointed.
Father Gaston Ogui Cossi, a theologian and priest from Benin, has placed himself at odds with the orthodox bishops and clergy of Africa by criticizing the exclusion from the Eucharist of Catholics living in sinful extramarital relationships, including polygamous unions — a practice recently reaffirmed by the African episcopate in coordination with Pope Leo. It is fair to ask whether Fernández was seeking a more progressive African voice.
Father Patrick Mwania from Kenya is a potentially similar case, though with less certainty. In an interview given during the conclave, he described Francis as having always been deeply progressive and pastorally open — including toward persons of different ideologies and orientations — even as a cardinal, while suggesting that Francis nevertheless remained loyal to Church doctrine. He implied that the cardinals would want a Pope who would build upon what Francis had accomplished.
Mediocrity and Banality
Several of the new members have confined themselves to cautious, centrist statements capable of satisfying multiple constituencies — praising synodality, for instance, without pushing radical reforms, and pursuing ecumenism that is neither purely relativist nor robustly doctrinal. With due respect to those involved, some of their preferred themes have a certain banal and studied safety about them in a moment of genuine ecclesial gravity.
The Korean theologian Teresa Hyeon Soon Choi, of Sogang University, has written on synodality and spirituality, and in 2016 spoke of implementing the mercy of Amoris Laetitia — without, however, specifying what that implementation would concretely entail.
Sister Shu Chin Hu from Taiwan has championed Karl Rahner's concept of the "anonymous Christian" and has focused chiefly on holistic spirituality and religious experience.
The German theologian Jan-Heiner Tück is a genuinely complex case. He has defended priestly celibacy and simultaneously called for married priests; he has criticized both the German Synodal Way and Traditionis Custodes; he has defended the controversial passages of Amoris Laetitia while opposing female ordination and expressing skepticism about progressive reform on sexual ethics.
Father Clarence Devadass from Malaysia represents centrism in concentrated form. In 2016 he spoke of mercy toward marginalized LGBT and divorced-and-remarried persons, while also insisting that doctrine is not in conflict with mercy. He has focused on interreligious dialogue and synodality, yet has also been outspokenly pro-life. Father Gilbert De Lima from India similarly represents the theological mainstream of the Indian subcontinent; he has been involved in interreligious dialogue, ecumenism, the Christian understanding of suffering grounded in the theology of John Paul II, and priestly formation.
The Dominican Father Jorge Scampini has promoted rapprochement with Lutheran theology while maintaining the traditional doctrine on the Eucharist; the German Jesuit Father Bernhard Knorn appears to have largely avoided controversy, concentrating on themes such as reconciliation. Anne-Sophie Vivier-Muresan, Dean of the Theologicum at the Catholic Institute of Paris, has engaged extensively with interreligious dialogue while steering clear of doctrinal controversy.
Maria Teresa Fattori, a researcher at the University of Teramo, is associated with the Bologna school — a center of progressive historical revisionism regarding Vatican II — yet appears herself to work primarily as a descriptive historian. Fabricio Leonel Forcat from Argentina is linked to the so-called theology of the people, yet is not known to advocate for radical doctrinal change on that basis.
Ratzingerian Orthodoxy
At the same time, several voices ranging from moderately to robustly orthodox have been added — though most are of the Ratzingerian rather than the traditionalist variety. They in fact outnumber the progressive voices, while centrists appear to form the plurality.
Two recipients of the Ratzinger Prize — Father Michel Fédou and Father Paul Béré, both ironically Jesuits — have been appointed, as have orthodox historians such as Father Carlo Dell'Osso and Professor Boyd Taylor Coolman. Even Fédou, while defending dogma against pure subjectivism, has tended to present dogma as a "liberating expression of the faith" — a characteristically moderate Ratzingerian framing.
Father Csaba Török, a priest from Cardinal Erdő's Archdiocese and spokesman for the Hungarian Bishops' Conference, has also been appointed, as has Professor Khaled Emmanuel Anatolios, Chair of the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Father Lubomír Žák from the Czech Republic is noteworthy for his resistance to relativistic ecumenism with Lutherans.
The Mexican theologian Father Julián López Amozurrutia deserves particular mention. Under Francis, he had the courage to defend the indissolubility of marriage and to reaffirm that second civil marriages constitute adultery in the eyes of the Church. Cardinal Fernández was likely less than enthusiastic about his inclusion on the Commission.
Conclusion
Even Infovaticana reports having found nothing objectionable in the work of eleven of the new members. The overall renewal is not radical in character and is not, on its surface, openly activist in orientation. Fernández was not permitted to pack the Commission in the manner he almost certainly would have been able to do under Francis.
At the same time, he did succeed in placing a handful of allies and enablers on the Commission. He is not a dominant force, but he has not been entirely sidelined either. He will in all likelihood complete his five-year term through 2028. The decisive question remains what will happen after that.
