Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, and Archbishop Bruno Forte as members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Each Vatican dicastery is led by a prefect and secretary; the members of dicasteries are appointed to five-year terms and meet at least every two years for discussion of “matters and questions of greater importance,” according to Praedicate Evangelium, the Pope’s apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia.
All three of the new members “have defended the Church’s moral teaching and marriage between a man and a woman,” writes Edward Pentin, senior correspondent of the National Catholic Register.
However, he continues, Cardinal Tolentino has written a foreword to a book by an ex-nun who is an advocate for “queer theology”; Cardinal Semeraro supported the legal recognition of homosexual civil unions (in 2016, well before Pope Francis did); and Archbishop Forte “has been a prominent voice advocating for more inclusion and respect for homosexuality and homosexual rights within the Church.”