Rome – A Vatican women’s magazine kindly criticized Pope Francis’ recent comments on appointing women to positions of authority in the Catholic Church, saying the pontiff touched a “sore spot” by warning again against the so-called clericalization of women.
“Women Church World”, a monthly supplement to the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano, offers a comment in its January issue on the volume of late 2020 Let us dream: the path to a better future, a collaborative effort between Francis and British author Austen Ivereigh.
The comment, authored by longtime former Vatican Radio journalist Romilda Ferrauto and featured on the last page of the magazine, praises Francisco’s words in the book about his efforts to nominate more women for positions in the Vatican.
But he also says that the pontiff’s later warning against the “clericalization” of women, a warning that Francis repeated throughout his eight years as papacy “, touches a sensitive point [of] distrust, fear and resistance. “
“This goes to the heart of the uncertainty present in some fringes of the Catholic universe and beyond, in relation to the exclusion of women from the ordained ministry and their perhaps consequent subordination”, writes Ferrauto.
Francis has struggled throughout his near papacy to better include women in the leadership structure and ministries of the Catholic Church, and repeatedly reaffirms Pope John Paul II’s ban on ordaining women to the priesthood.
The pope also warned against “clericalizing” women in his February 2020 document in response to the Vatican Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region, saying that he did not want the Church to restrict its understanding of itself to a consideration only of its own. “functional structures”.
“Such reductionism would lead us to believe that women would have a higher status and greater participation in the Church only if they were admitted to the Sacred Orders,” he said in the document. “But this approach would actually narrow our view; it would lead us to clericalize women.”
Inside Let’s dream, the pope seemed to offer his first public defense on the appointment of women to positions of authority. He especially highlighted the appointment of Italian Barbara Jatta in 2016 to lead the Vatican Museums and several other women whom he appointed undersecretaries in Vatican departments.
“Perhaps because of clericalism, which is a corruption of the priesthood, many people mistakenly believe that the leadership of the Church is exclusively male,” the pope said in the book.
“To say that they are not really leaders because they are not priests is clericalist and disrespectful,” he added.
Ferrauto writes that women’s criticisms of Francisco’s comments “were not many, but they were harsh”. She mentions a statement by the Women’s Ordination Conference and comments by Anne Soupa, a French theologian who applied for the Vatican embassy in Paris in 2020 to be the next archbishop of Lyon.
“For Francisco, saying that in reality women do not govern because they are not priests is clericalist and disrespectful”, writes Ferrauto.
“The truth is that, as has often been stressed, reflection on the Christian life of women forces us to put the question of the priesthood in terms of power and the balance of powers and the reality of the ministerial priesthood in relation to the baptismal priesthood, “she continues.
The remainder of the January 2021 edition of “Women Church World” is largely dedicated to the work of Catholic religious women around the world. It brings the theme: “Sisters: today is not yesterday”, and focuses on how the sisters are different from the images frequently shown of them in popular films.
Among the profiles of prominent sisters today are figures such as Missionária de Jesus Sr. Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Vale do Rio Grande; Social Service Br. Simone Campbell, executive director of the Network of Catholic Wolves based in Washington; and Salesian Sr. Alessandra Smerilli, one of the five official councilors of the Pontifical Commission for the State of Vatican City.