VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Renewing the membership of the Vatican Dicastery for Clergy, Pope Leo XIV included as members the secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, a Canadian cardinal and two U.S. bishops.
The pope named eight cardinals and 14 bishops to five-year terms as members of the dicastery, which is led by South Korean Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik.
The new members, announced by the Vatican Aug. 28, included: Cardinal Frank Leo of Toronto; Bishop Luis Manuel Alí Herrera, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors; Bishop James F. Checchio, of Metuchen, New Jersey; and Bishop Edward M. Lohse of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Pope Leo also appointed a dozen new consultants for the dicastery, including two religious sisters: U.S.-born Trappistine Mother Martha Driscoll, superior of the women’s community at the Tre Fontane Monastery in Rome; and Romanian Sister Iuliana Sarosi, a member of the Congregation of the Mother of God and a professor of psychology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
The dicastery offers guidance and assistance to bishops in everything that has to do with the recruitment, training and continuing education of diocesan priests and permanent deacons.
