Women gain ground in the Vatican, but are not yet in decision-making positions

This year Pope Francis has appointed women to some important Vatican positions, although he has also ruled out priesthood ordination for them so far, something that also causes debate.

The most recent and highest-level designation she has made is that of the Franciscan nun and political scientist. Raffaella Petrini, 52, who has been Secretary General of the Interior of the Vatican City State since November.

Petrini is something of a vice mayor of Vatican City and, according to The National Catholic Reporter, She is responsible for the administrative management of the Vatican Museums, the post office and the Police.

Previously, in August, he had appointed the Italian nun Alessandra Smerilli interina secretary of Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development and delegate of the Vatican Commission COVID-19. The Salesian nun was undersecretary of this dicastery since March 2021.

That month he also inducted five women to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, including three Nobel laureates: Canadian astrophysicist Donna Theo Strickland, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, and two biochemists awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for their contributions to the edition genetics: the French Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier, a teacher in Berlin, and the American Jennifer Anne Doudna, professor at the University of Berkeley.

The current “number two” of the Vatican Economic Council, Charlotte Kreuter-Kirchhof, was also named recently.

In February, he appointed for the first time a woman as undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops (with the right to vote): the French nun Nathalie Becquart, who is accompanied in this position by a Spaniard from the Order of San Agustín, Luis Marín de San Martín.

In addition, there are six women in the supervisory body of all economic activities of the Vatican, including two Spanish: Eva Castillo Y Maria Concepción Osácar Garaicoechea, with long experience in international financial entities.

The Vatican Museums, one of the jewels of the small State, have been run since 2016 by Barbara Jatta. Since 2015, the Italian manager has been in charge of the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital Mariella Enoch.

In accordance with The Vatican News, in 2019 women already represented 22% of the Vatican staff. And, according to data from the Holy See, in the last decade the presence of women in the Vatican has increased 6% and has almost doubled in the dicasteries.

Despite the progress, there are voices that think that it is still slow and even that the actions are limited to positions that do not have much influence and are more managerial. Contrary to that line, the previous year the Church in Germany studied issues such as the possibility of ordaining women as priests and celibacy.

But the pope has only sent to study the role of women in the early years of Christianity through a commission to determine if they could become deaconesses, but it does not seem that it will go beyond this. Especially because there is still rejection of very strong changes within the Church, and for that reason he prefers to go slowly, a source close to Francisco told the newspaper The country.

In January, the 84-year-old Francisco changed the law to allow women to read the Bible at mass, give communion and help at the altar during the liturgy.

Catholic women’s groups have asked for years that there be not only a greater participation of women in the Synod, the assemblies of bishops and in decisions.

In the first Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean (in November), Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops of the Vatican, mentioned that the idea of ​​the ordination of women was a “wrong way, which does not respect the peculiarity of the woman”. Adding: “The woman is an extraordinary catechist, she can be chancellor of a diocese, advocate in certain causes, participate in communication, in administration, hold very important positions in a diocese, in parishes. The charisms of women are multiple and it is necessary to open full recognition, without pretending that it will begin to have all the space in the Church if it is ordained a priest ”.

On the contrary, at the same event, Lisandra Chaves, executive secretary at the National Communication Commission of the Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica, indicated that women should not be “servants of clericalism” and should hold decision-making positions in the Church. She affirms that it is time for women to also play a leadership role.

Monsignor Luis Cabrera, archbishop of Guayaquil, comments that since the Second Vatican Council two concepts have been deepened that explain the openness in the Church to the presence of women. The first is that of the Church as the people of God, in which all the baptized have the right and duty to contribute and participate in the best way so that the Church, in the different fields, can move forward. And that has happened, for example, in the case of lay women who contribute with their great reflections.

“The second concept is that the pope has now invited us to synodality …, which means walking together. It has three stages. The first is listening … The second is discernment, thinking together and asking ourselves what it is that God wants at this moment. The third is deciding what to do, ”says Cabrera, who adds that this also explains why the presence of women is increasingly visible and important.

The Monsignor adds that in the Vatican there are many women who work in the administrative, theological and even in the disciplines of consecrated life.

For Lucetta Scaraffia, former director of the women’s supplement The Osservatore Romano Women, Church, World, There is progress, but further steps are still needed in the role of women in the Church.

Meanwhile, Martha Villafuerte, a laywoman of the Church and former candidate for vice president of the republic, thinks that the pope considers the participation of women in the life and mission of the Church important, especially in administrative instances that require the power of order. He adds that “positions of power” is a misapplied term, administrative positions of important juncture is the correct thing to do.

“We respond to a God of order, not of” positions of power “… from a local context I can limit that, in the Archdiocese of Guayaquil, many women work in administrative and pastoral positions, such as myself, who is in charge the general coordination of the Life and Family Program of the Archdiocese of Guayaquil. Likewise, most of the directors of schools and colleges in the Archdiocesan Educational Network (REA) are women ”, points out Villafuerte.

He adds that female participation in the church has been very present and that now there is more media visibility and awareness of the issue. “The participation of women in the church and also in the Holy See has been constant and gradual, not accelerated because it would unbalance the entire hierarchical process that our Catholic religion has maintained throughout its history … let us remember that the role that our Mother plays in Virgin Mary has our church, it is one of the most important and it clearly marks the importance of men and women administering, working, and evangelizing from any work or pastoral sphere ”. (I)