[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV' New Consultors for Dicastery for Religious Life Are Liberal, Synodal "Reformers"

On August 6, Pope Leo XIV appointed 15 new consultors to the Dicastery for Religious, headed by Prefect Sr Simona Brambilla. The new consultors comprise two bishops (Alfonso Vincenzo Amarante and Kevin Otieno Mwandha), five priests, including one abbot (Ignasi Fossas, Damián Astigueta, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Benjamin Earl and Flavien Mambueni), two religious brothers (Antoine Kazindu and Emili Turú), and six religious sisters (Chiara Lorenzato, Maria Nirmalini, María Rosaura González Casas, Mary Lembo, Patricia Murray and Maria do Disterro Rocha Santos).

Leo XIV has again appointed liberal, synodal figures, illustrated by these four personnel choices.

Indian Sister Maria Nirmalini, A.C. was a member of the Synod on Synodality (2023) and hoped for “liturgical reform, particularly of the Mass with less emphasis on uniformity and more on creativity.”

In the same VaticanNews.va interview she demanded “inclusion of women in all leadership/decision making processes in the Church”.

She wrote an exceptionally enthusiastic tenth-anniversary tribute to Francis in 2023. She called his pontificate “a new kind of leadership, a new way of being church.” Furthermore, she praised the “desperately needed reforms in the church”.

Sr Nirmalini explicitly identifies Francis's engagement with Islam as one of the accomplishments of his pontificate: “One of the many firsts of Pope Francis is the long stride he has made in interreligious dialogue, particularly with Muslims.”

Sr Patricia Murray, I.B.V.M. (Loreto Sister) is probably the most revealing appointment on the list. She is the former Executive Secretary of the ultraliberal International Union of Superiors General (UISG). She has been a prominent promoter of Francis’s vision of synodality within women’s religious life.

During Murray's tenure, UISG worked extensively with the UN, climate advocacy, and immigration and the pro-abortion 'Sustainable Development Goals'.

In a 2021 conference on synodality, Sr Murray said that “if the Vatican's synod process is to succeed, discussion of hot-button topics like women's ordination and women deacons cannot be silenced”.

At the October 2023 Vatican Synod briefing Murray was directly asked about homosexuals. She replied: “Thank you for that question. I think at many of the tables, if not all of them, the question of hurt and the woundedness of people, individually and collectively, has been dealt with and listened to. . . There have been discussions about how to symbolically, in a sense, represent that hurt. Some people have said that sorry is not enough. How does the Church give a sign and symbol for hurts that have been caused? There is a deep awareness of the pain and suffering that has been caused.”

Sr Murray has been consistently enthusiastic about Francis. She regularly presents his reforms positively and has portrayed his appointments of women to significant Vatican roles as milestones in the Chuch's development.

Br Emili Turú Rofes, F.M.S., a Catalan Marist Brother and former Superior General of the Marists (2009–2017), is a strong advocate of the synodal transformation of the Church. In 2024 he described synodality as what “the Lord expects of the Church in this millennium”.

Speaking to young Marists in 2018, Turú said about Christ that he was “a revolutionary and subversive figure”: “Religions are born to set people free, to help them grow and to make them happy, but often, over time, they become rigid and lose their liberating power. In this sense, Jesus blew apart the religious system of his time.”

Since January 2019, Br Emili Turú Rofes has served as Director of Faith and Praxis for Global Leadership, a project by the Marist Brothers that provides consultancy to religious congregations (68 communities in 2024). Its vision are themes such as ‘New Cosmology,’ ‘New Physics,’ the ‘Historical Jesus,’ ‘deconstructing,’ and ‘New Spirituality.’”

Sr María Rosaura González Casas, S.T.J. (Society of St Teresa of Jesus), is a Mexican religious sister, psychologist and Extraordinary Professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

In an October 2022 interview with Europa Press she said that women had often been treated within the Church as “second-class people” without an adequate voice, adding that “ecclesial culture and hierarchical structures have favoured this.”

In March 2023 she said in a talk on women's position and synodality that structural change was necessary in the Church as “there is no synodality without equality” for women. And: “Our structures do not speak of the Kingdom”.

In her 2025 book ‘Verdad y Reparación’ she confronted “structural intra-ecclesial sin” and sought “new practices and structures”.

In a 2021 conference on synodality, Sr Murray said that “if the Vatican's synod process is to succeed, discussion of hot-button topics like women's ordination and women deacons cannot be silenced”.

These are the type of people Pope Leo is choosing to propagate Bergoglio's phony synodal "church".

To: Al Hitan; Fedora; irishjuggler; Jaded; kalee; markomalley; miele man; Mrs. Don-o; ...

2 posted on 08/08/2026 9:02:21 PM PDT by ebb tide (Francis' sin-nodal "church" is not the Catholic Church.)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.