“All of my predecessors were priests and bishops,” Sr M. Isa-bell explained with a smile. The Schoenstatt Sister of Mary was referring to her appointment as President of the Catholic Institute of Sydney, Australia, the count-ry’s only ecclesiastical faculty, which confers Pontifical degrees in Sacred Theology. The faculty was established in 1954 for Aus-tralia, New Zealand and Oceania. Sr M. Isabell Naumann, a Ger-man-born member of the Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary (ISSM), was appointed President of the Catholic Institute of Sydney in 2018 by Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP.
Prior to her appointment, Sr M. Isabell worked for many years as professor at the Catholic Insti-tute of Sydney. Her appointment as president of the Institute still came as a surprise. In an inter-view with Vatican News, Sr M. Isabell said, “There are not too many women who lead ecclesia-stical faculties or universities. Ours goes back to the 1880s, and it became an ecclesiastical facu-lty in 1956. All of my predece-ssors were priests and bishops.” Three years after her appointment as President of the Catholic In-stitute of Sydney, in October 2021, Sr M. Isabell was called by Pope Francis to be a member of the In-ternational Theological Commi-ssion (ITC).
In her opinion, there should be a stronger presence of women in such commissions like the ITC. She finds this important, “so that you have more complementary thinking.”
“It is very important because we might deal with the same to-pic, but you have different ways of approaching the topic, and in my eyes that is a very important complement, and that needs to come together when you deal with anything in theology,” she ex-plained, expressing her hope that there will be more women on such commissions in future.
Pope Francis often stresses the importance of woman and their role within the Church.