Latest news with #Women'sOrdinationConference
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Some women in the Catholic Church push for change amid Pope Leo XIV's election
As cardinals selected American Cardinal Robert Prevost to become the 267th pontiff -- Pope Leo XIV -- on Thursday, one major group was excluded from the decision-making process: women. "Ordained priests will meet behind closed doors to make a consequential decision about the future of the church during the conclave," Kate McElwee, director of the Women's Ordination Conference, told ABC News. "Every woman from the parish worker to the Dicastery leader has to eventually answer to an ordained man." Tune into "The American Pope: Leo XIV," a special edition of "20/20," on Friday night at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on ABC, and streaming later on Hulu and Disney+ McElwee, whose organization has spent 50 years advocating for women to become priests, deacons and bishops, described the conclave as "a textbook old boys club that the Vatican has long upheld." "As a church, we have to really reckon with: do we worship patriarchy or do we worship the life and works of Jesus Christ?" McElwee asked. The Vatican didn't immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment. MORE: Pope Leo XIV live updates While Leo XIV's predecessor Pope Francis made historic strides in appointing women to leadership roles -- including Sister Raffaella Petrini as executive of Vatican State, the highest-ranking position ever held by a woman in the Catholic Church -- McElwee said these changes didn't go far enough. "He started to change a culture. There are more opportunities for men and women to be in collaboration with each other," McElwee said. "And I think that's the start. You know, it's an incomplete project." The Catholic Church maintains that only men can be ordained as priests, viewing this not as a cultural tradition but as unchangeable divine law. In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared this position as official doctrine, writing that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women." MORE: Pope Leo XIV: How his views compare to those of Pope Francis However, women played crucial roles in Catholic history since the church's beginning. Walking through Rome, churches named after female saints tell stories of unwavering faith. "Women have always been strong pillars, custodians of faith," Alessandra Morelli, who spent 30 years working with refugees for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told ABC News. In a 2023 interview with Vatican Media, Leo XIV highlighted his experience with having women in church leadership, particularly discussing the three women appointed to help select bishops -- a reform he oversaw under Francis."Their opinion introduces another perspective and becomes an important contribution to the process," he told Vatican Media, emphasizing that their roles represent "real, genuine, and meaningful participation." When asked if she would want to become ordained as a deacon or priest, Morelli responds with a firm "Absolutely." Drawing from her experience mediating in conflict zones, Morelli believes women bring unique qualities to leadership. "Power is out of the game," she said. "We listen with a much more non-judgmental attitude. We open spaces, we generate spaces and we know how to manage the unknown." Some women in the Catholic Church push for change amid Pope Leo XIV's election originally appeared on
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Some women in the Catholic Church push for change amid Pope Leo XIV's election
As cardinals selected American Cardinal Robert Prevost to become the 267th pontiff -- Pope Leo XIV -- on Thursday, one major group was excluded from the decision-making process: women. "Ordained priests will meet behind closed doors to make a consequential decision about the future of the church during the conclave," Kate McElwee, director of the Women's Ordination Conference, told ABC News. "Every woman from the parish worker to the Dicastery leader has to eventually answer to an ordained man." Tune into "The American Pope: Leo XIV," a special edition of "20/20," on Friday night at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on ABC, and streaming later on Hulu and Disney+ McElwee, whose organization has spent 50 years advocating for women to become priests, deacons and bishops, described the conclave as "a textbook old boys club that the Vatican has long upheld." "As a church, we have to really reckon with: do we worship patriarchy or do we worship the life and works of Jesus Christ?" McElwee asked. The Vatican didn't immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment. MORE: Pope Leo XIV live updates While Leo XIV's predecessor Pope Francis made historic strides in appointing women to leadership roles -- including Sister Raffaella Petrini as executive of Vatican State, the highest-ranking position ever held by a woman in the Catholic Church -- McElwee said these changes didn't go far enough. "He started to change a culture. There are more opportunities for men and women to be in collaboration with each other," McElwee said. "And I think that's the start. You know, it's an incomplete project." The Catholic Church maintains that only men can be ordained as priests, viewing this not as a cultural tradition but as unchangeable divine law. In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared this position as official doctrine, writing that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women." MORE: Pope Leo XIV: How his views compare to those of Pope Francis However, women played crucial roles in Catholic history since the church's beginning. Walking through Rome, churches named after female saints tell stories of unwavering faith. "Women have always been strong pillars, custodians of faith," Alessandra Morelli, who spent 30 years working with refugees for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told ABC News. In a 2023 interview with Vatican Media, Leo XIV highlighted his experience with having women in church leadership, particularly discussing the three women appointed to help select bishops -- a reform he oversaw under Francis."Their opinion introduces another perspective and becomes an important contribution to the process," he told Vatican Media, emphasizing that their roles represent "real, genuine, and meaningful participation." When asked if she would want to become ordained as a deacon or priest, Morelli responds with a firm "Absolutely." Drawing from her experience mediating in conflict zones, Morelli believes women bring unique qualities to leadership. "Power is out of the game," she said. "We listen with a much more non-judgmental attitude. We open spaces, we generate spaces and we know how to manage the unknown." Some women in the Catholic Church push for change amid Pope Leo XIV's election originally appeared on
NDTV
08-05-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Pink Smoke Signals In Rome Call For Women Priests
Rome: Excluded from the conclave to elect a new pope Wednesday -- and more broadly from the Church's entire global priesthood -- some Catholic women were determined that their voices will be heard. In a park on a hill overlooking the dome of St Peter's and the church's Vatican headquarters, campaigners released pink smoke from flares, and demanded that women be allowed to seek ordination. "We are saying to the cardinals, you cannot keep ignoring 50 percent of the Catholic population, you cannot go into a locked room and discuss the future of the Church without half of the Church," said Miriam Duignan. "Whoever they elect needs to be brave enough to properly tackle the question of women's inclusion, because so far it has not been, even by Pope Francis," said Duignan, of the Wijngaards Institute in Cambridge. Duignan was briefly detained in 2011 after she attempted to enter the Vatican to deliver a petition in support of a priest backing the activists' cause. Had the activists taken their Wednesday protest -- a nod to the black and white smoke used by the Holy See to announce voting results -- to the Vatican, they believe a similar fate would have awaited them. "Whenever we go down to St Peter's Square, we are detained by the police ... and we are certainly not invited to go into the conclave," Duignan said "The only women that those 133 men will see in the next few days will be nuns who are cleaning their rooms and serving them food and tidying up after them." The cardinals meeting Wednesday behind closed doors in the Sistine Chapel will not hear any female opinions during deliberations expected to last days, with multiple rounds of voting. The only women they will see before white smoke rises to announce their decision has been made will be the nuns who cook, clean and serve upon them in the Santa Marta guesthouse. In the global church as a whole, women have begun to take some senior lay roles, a process that accelerated a little under Pope Francis's papacy. But even those who have studied theology and church ministry are excluded from the priesthood, and only priests hold the most senior leadership roles. "Yes, Pope Francis elevated and promoted a few women into roles of responsibility, but they are always lower in status and authority than a man," said Duignan. "Even the youngest priest in the room is the boss of the oldest, more experienced woman." 'A sin and a scandal' The campaigners say women took equal roles in worship in the early Church, before medieval reforms, and that, in Duignan's words, "the men who are going into the Sistine Chapel this afternoon know that, and they don't want everyone else to know that." Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference campaign group, described this as an injustice and a "crisis" for the church. "While the world may wait for white smoke or black smoke, we send up pink smoke as our hope that the Church may someday welcome women as equals," she said. French activist Gabrielle Fidelin called it "a sin and a scandal that women are kept out of priesthood and the conclave." According to Duignan, even after Francis's relatively reformist 12-year pontificate, only one of the 133 cardinal electors to be sequestered in conclave has taken a positive stance on women's ordination. And she was reluctant to identify him by name, in case he found himself expelled from the gathering. This despite the once taboo issue being given an airing in the Synod -- an assembly of clergy, clerics and laypeople -- which under Francis has included female members. In October last year, a report was issued after Francis approved a working party to look into the idea of allowing women to become deacons -- a step before the priesthood. It acknowledged that "the question of women's access to diaconal ministry remains open" but concluded that it was too soon to make a decision.
NZ Herald
07-05-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Catholic women release pink smoke near Vatican to protest male domination
Duignan was briefly detained in 2011 after she attempted to enter the Vatican to deliver a petition in support of a priest backing the activists' cause. Had the activists taken their Wednesday protest – a nod to the black and white smoke used by the Holy See to announce voting results – to the Vatican, they believe a similar fate would have awaited them. 'Whenever we go down to St Peter's Square, we are detained by the police ... and we are certainly not invited to go into the conclave,' Duignan said. 'The only women that those 133 men will see in the next few days will be nuns who are cleaning their rooms and serving them food and tidying up after them.' The cardinals meeting on Wednesday behind closed doors in the Sistine Chapel will not hear any female opinions during deliberations expected to last days, with multiple rounds of voting. The only women they will see before white smoke rises to announce their decision will be the nuns who cook, clean and serve them in the Santa Marta guesthouse. In the global church as a whole, women have begun to take some senior lay roles, a process that accelerated a little under Pope Francis' papacy. But even those who have studied theology and church ministry are excluded from the priesthood, and only priests hold the most senior leadership roles. 'Yes, Pope Francis elevated and promoted a few women into roles of responsibility, but they are always lower in status and authority than a man,' said Duignan. 'Even the youngest priest in the room is the boss of the oldest, more experienced woman.' A sin and a scandal The campaigners say women took equal roles in worship in the early Church, before medieval reforms, and, in Duignan's words, 'the men who are going into the Sistine Chapel this afternoon know that, and they don't want everyone else to know that'. Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference campaign group, described this as an injustice and a 'crisis' for the Church. 'While the world may wait for white smoke or black smoke, we send up pink smoke as our hope that the Church may someday welcome women as equals,' she said. French activist Gabrielle Fidelin called it 'a sin and a scandal that women are kept out of priesthood and the conclave'. According to Duignan, even after Francis' relatively reformist 12-year pontificate, only one of the 133 cardinal electors to be sequestered in conclave has taken a positive stance on women's ordination. And she was reluctant to identify him by name, in case he found himself expelled from the gathering. This despite the once taboo issue being given an airing in the Synod – an assembly of clergy, clerics and laypeople – which under Francis has included female members. In October last year, a report was issued after Francis approved a working party to look into the idea of allowing women to become deacons – a step before the priesthood. It acknowledged that 'the question of women's access to diaconal ministry remains open' but concluded that it was too soon to make a decision.
Gulf Today
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Cardinals set to enter conclave to decide who follows Pope Francis
Roman Catholic cardinals will begin the task on Wednesday of electing a new pope, locking themselves away from the world until they choose the man they hope can unite a diverse but divided global Church. In a ritual dating back to medieval times, the cardinals will file into the Vatican's frescoed Sistine Chapel after a public Mass in St. Peter's Basilica and start their secret conclave for a successor to Pope Francis, who died last month. No pope has been elected on the first day of a conclave for centuries, so voting could continue for several days before one of the red-hatted princes of the Church receives the necessary two-thirds majority to become the 267th pontiff. Television journalists work near the Vatican on the first day of the conclave to elect the next pope, as seen from Rome. Reuters There will be only one ballot on Wednesday. Thereafter, the cardinals can vote as many as four times a day. They will burn their ballots, with black smoke from a chimney on the roof of the chapel marking an inconclusive vote, while white smoke and the peeling of bells signalling that the 1.4 billion member Church has a new leader. The pope's influence reaches well beyond the Catholic Church, providing a moral voice and a call to conscience that no other global leader can match. At a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Wednesday morning before entering the conclave, the cardinals prayed that God would help them find a pope who would exercise "watchful care" over the world. Members of the Catholic women's group, Women's Ordination Conference, hold flares of pink smoke, calling for women's equality in the Catholic church and in protest at male-only conclave, in Rome. Reuters In a sermon, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re told his peers they must set aside "every personal consideration" in choosing the new pontiff and keep in mind "only ... the good of the Church and of humanity." Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, is 91 and will not enter the conclave, which is reserved for cardinals under the age of 80. Cardinals in recent days have offered different assessments of what they are looking for in the next pontiff. While some have called for continuity with Francis' vision of greater openness and reform, others have said they want to turn the clock back and embrace old traditions. Many have indicated they want a more predictable, measured pontificate. Salvadoran Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chavez said he did not think the cardinals would retreat from Francis' vision for the Church. "There will not be a step backwards," Rosa Chavez, aged 82, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. "It is not possible." "Whoever is chosen, I think it will be a pope who continues the work begun by Francis," he said. A record 133 cardinals from 70 countries will enter the Sistine Chapel, up from 115 from 48 nations in the last conclave in 2013 — growth that reflects Francis' efforts to extend the reach of the Church to far-flung regions with few Catholics. No clear favourite has emerged, although Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle are considered the front-runners. NO EAVESDROPPING However, if it quickly becomes obvious that neither can win, votes are likely to shift to other contenders, with the electors possibly coalescing around geography, doctrinal affinity or common languages. Among other potential candidates are France's Jean-Marc Aveline, Hungary's Peter Erdo, American Robert Prevost and Italy's Pierbattista Pizzaballa. Re suggested the cardinals should look for a pope who respected the diversity within the Church. "Unity does not mean uniformity, but a firm and profound communion in diversity," he said in his sermon. As in medieval times, the cardinals will be banned from communicating with outsiders during the conclave, and the Vatican has taken high-tech measures to ensure secrecy, including jamming devices to prevent any eavesdropping. Reuters
