Pope Leo appoints pro-female ordination, pro-LGBT consultors to religious life dicastery

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV has appointed new consultors to the Vatican’s religious life dicastery, including advocates of LGBT ideology and “women’s ordination,” greater liturgical experimentation, and structural changes to Church governance.

On August 6, Pope Leo appointed 15 new consultors to the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, headed by Prefect Sister Simona Brambilla. The appointments include two bishops, five priests, two religious brothers, and six religious sisters, among them several figures who have publicly supported heterodox positions associated with the synodal reforms of Pope Francis.

Perhaps the most revealing appointment is Sister Patricia Murray, a former executive secretary of the International Union of Superiors General. Murray has been a prominent supporter of Francis’ understanding of so-called synodality within women’s religious life.

At a 2021 conference on synodality, Murray argued that discussions concerning controversial questions could not simply be excluded from the process. “We have to also allow the topics that people want to talk about to be named,” she said, explicitly mentioning women’s diaconate and priesthood.

Murray was also questioned about “the pain of LGBTQ+ people” during a Vatican press conference concerning the Synod on October 16, 2023. “I think, at many of the tables, if not all, the question of hurt, and the woundedness of people both individually and collectively has been dealt with and listened to,” she answered.

She said participants discussed how the Church might “represent that hurt,” adding some had argued that apologies alone for “hurts that have been caused” were insufficient.

Another relevant appointment is Sister Maria Nirmalini, an Indian religious who participated in the 2023 Synod on Synodality. In an interview with Vatican News, Nirmalini called for a “liturgical reform … with less emphasis on uniformity and more on creativity.”

She also praised Pope Francis for “including us women” and framed this as a sign that “all are included in this journey.” Paraphrasing St. Catherine of Siena, Nirmalini called women to “demand equality” and to offer their gifts “whether … legitimated or not” because “no one, not even the Church, has the right to deny the gifts of God.”

READ: Bishop says ‘homosexuality is not a sin’ at pro-LGBT conference

The Indian sister presented the Synod as a “new beginning” involving “persons at all levels of the Church” with “no one left behind,” which implies a shift away from hierarchical governance toward broad participatory processes. “Here history was being created,” Nirmalini stated. She explicitly hoped for a “substantial toning down of clericalism” and a greater emphasis by the Church on the issue of “co-responsibility in the care for creation.”

Nirmalini praised Francis in unusually enthusiastic terms also on another occasion. On March 13, 2023, in a tribute marking the tenth anniversary of Francis pontificate, she described it as “a new kind of leadership, a new way of being Church” and praised what she called reforms that the Church “desperately” needed. “That was just the beginning,” she said.

She also singled out Francis’ approach to Islam as an important achievement, saying: “One of the many firsts of Pope Francis is the long stride he has made in interreligious dialogue, particularly with Muslims.”

Another newly appointed consultant is Brother Emili Turú Rofes, a Catalan Marist who served as Superior General of the Marist Brothers from 2009 to 2017. Turú has strongly promoted the synodal transformation of the Church. In an interview published in The Synodal Times on February 12, 2024, Turú described synodality as what “the Lord expects from the Church in this millennium.”

Turú also framed the Synod as a direct continuation and implementation of the Second Vatican Council, stating that “we are now in the implementation of Vatican II,” implying that the post-conciliar trajectory is a normative yet unfinished path for the Church.

In that interview, Turú said that religious communities must be ready to “shed what is not essential in their own tradition” to embrace “the newness of the Spirit.” Finally, he expressed the hope for a “new style of relationship in the Church … with believers and non-believers. I hope that in a few years, when we look back, we will be able to recognize that the journey we have made together has made us better people.”

Sister María Rosaura González Casas is another appointee whose writings and public statements point toward significant changes in the Church’s structures. The Mexican religious sister is a psychologist and professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

In an interview with Europa Press published on October 31, 2022, González Casas claimed that the Church has systematically failed women, and that if this continues “we will have no future as a Church.” She added that women had frequently been treated within the Church as “second-class people” and merely as “labor force,” without an adequate voice in decision-making. She attributed this situation to what she called the influence of ecclesial culture and hierarchical structures, also causing “abuse of nuns.”

The remaining appointments announced August 6 are Bishop Alfonso Vincenzo Amarante; Bishop Kevin Otieno Mwandha; priests Ignasi Fossas, Damián Astigueta, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Benjamin Earl, and Flavien Mambueni; Brother Antoine Kazindu; and Sisters Chiara Lorenzato, Mary Lembo, and Maria do Disterro Rocha Santos.

The appointments come as the Vatican dicastery responsible for consecrated life continues under the leadership of Sister Simona Brambilla, who became its prefect under Pope Francis on January 6, 2025.