Pope Leo XIV has appointed 24 new members to the International Theological Commission and extended the mandates of six theologians who served during its last term, Vatican News reported. The appointments, made on Monday, open the body's eleventh five-year term, running from 2026 to 2031.
The renewed commission has 30 members in total, two more than the 28 of the previous term. Among the six confirmed members is Monsignor Piero Coda, who will serve another five years as the commission's Secretary General.
According to Vatican News, the group's membership now includes more theologians from Asia, Africa and South America than before. The commission's first plenary session of the new term is scheduled for November 23–27.
Why it matters
The International Theological Commission is not a decision-making body, but its work feeds directly into how the Holy See examines doctrinal questions. Vatican News describes its role as assisting the Holy See — and in particular the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — in studying doctrinal matters of major importance and current relevance.
Its membership is also a visible signal of which regions and which kinds of Catholic experience the Vatican wants at the table. The new term draws theologians from a wider spread of countries, and it brings more women and more laypeople into the room than the previous five years did.
A shift in who sits on the commission
The most striking change is in the composition of the membership. The number of women has gone from five to eight, and five of those eight are laywomen. Alongside three laymen, that makes eight lay members in total — twice the figure of the previous term.
Vatican News reports that the members continue to reflect a range of ecclesial backgrounds, representing different states of life and different religious charisms. In other words, the commission is not drawn only from clergy or from a single school of thought; it is meant to bring together theologians from different schools and different nations.
The geographic balance has moved as well. Europe accounts for 13 members, down from 14. Asia and Africa each have four representatives, up from three apiece, while South America has five, compared with four. North America keeps three members and Australia one.
The new appointees
The 24 new members named by the Pope span institutions across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia.
From Rome, the appointments include Father Paul Béré, S.J., dean of the Biblical Faculty of the Pontifical Biblical Institute of the Pontifical Gregorian University, and Professor Claudia Leal Luna, a full professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.
Italy also supplies Monsignor Carlo Dell'Osso, secretary of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology.
Several appointees come from Spain and Latin America. Father Ángel Cordovilla Pérez is dean of the faculties of theology and canon law at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid. Father Tiago de Fraga Gomes teaches at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Father Fabricio Leonel Forcat is an associate professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires, and Father Jorge Alejandro Scampini, O.P., is a full professor at the same university. Father Julián Arturo López Amozurrutia is dean of the faculty of theology at the Pontifical University of Mexico.
From Asia, the Pope named Father Gilbert De Lima, executive secretary of the Commission for Theology and Doctrine of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India; Father Clarence Devadass, director of the Catholic Research Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Sister Shu Chin (Maria Teresa) Hu, F.I., an extraordinary professor at the Fu Jen Faculty of Theology of Saint Robert Bellarmine in Taipei, Taiwan; and Professor Teresa Hyeon Soon Choi, an associate professor at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea.
Africa is represented among the new members by Father Gaston Ogui Cossi, dean of the Bobo-Dioulasso unit of the Catholic University of West Africa in Benin, and Father Patrick Mwania, C.S.Sp., vice chancellor of Tangaza University in Nairobi, Kenya.
Elsewhere in Europe, the appointees include Monsignor Lubomír Žák, a full professor at the Saints Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology at Palacký University Olomouc in Czechia; Father Csaba Török, an associate professor at Esztergom Theological College in Hungary; Father Michel Fédou, S.J., professor emeritus at Facultés Loyola Paris in France; Father Bernhard Knorn, S.J., a full professor at Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Professor Sara Parvis, an associate professor at the School of Divinity of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; and Professor Jan-Heiner Tück, head of the department of dogmatic theology and the history of dogma at the University of Vienna in Austria.
Two appointees are based in the United States: Father Khaled Emmanuel Anatolios, chair of the department of theology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, and Professor Boyd Taylor Coolman, an associate professor in the theology department at Boston College in Chestnut Hill.
The full list was published by Vatican News alongside the announcement of the appointments.
What to watch
The commission's November plenary will be the first chance to see the new membership working together, and its agenda will indicate which doctrinal questions the body intends to take up during the 2026–2031 term.
