Women theologians appointed to senior roles in Rome and Maynooth

Dr Jessie Rogers and Sr Nuria Calduch-Benages

Source: Vatican News/ICMO

Two women have been appointed to senior Church roles this month. Dr Jessie Rogers is to become the first woman and lay Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical University Maynooth, while Spanish biblical scholar, Sr Nuria Calduch-Benages, will be the first woman secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Dr Rogers, originally South African, undertook her graduate studies at the University of Stellenbosch and came to Ireland in 2007 to teach in Mary Immaculate College before joining the Faculty of Theology at Saint Patrick's College in 2014. As a Scripture scholar specialising in the Old Testament, her academic work focuses on biblical wisdom literature. In recent years it has broadened to include spirituality and a focus on the theology of childhood. Dr Rogers is a member of the Irish Biblical Association, the South African Society for Near Eastern Studies, the European Society for Catholic Theology, and the Godly Play International College of Trainers. Dr Rogers brings international and ecumenical experience to her new role.

The first woman to become secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Sr Nuria Calduch-Benages teaches Old Testament at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is a renowned expert on Sacred Scripture. Hailing from Barcelona, Spain, Sr Nuria Calduch-Benages is a member of the Congregation of Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. She also took part in the work of the Study Commission on the Diaconate of Women (2016-2019). On 9 March, Pope Francis appointed her secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the Vatican office of which she has been a member since 2014. She was recently reappointed for another five-year term, which will last until 2025.

Among other positions, she is a guest professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, an assiduous collaborator of the Catholic Biblical Federation, a prominent member of specialized journals, serving on the scientific committee of the journal History of Women (University of Florence) and collaborating on the series "Tesis y Monografías" published by Verbo Divino (Estella). In 2008 she participated as an expert in the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops focusing on "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church."