SPIRIT WOW: Pope Francis, Stop Telling Women What Their Vocations Are
Your first job is not to give women more responsibility, it’s to listen to them.
In an online interview with 60 Minutes earlier this week, Pope Francis definitively and unreservedly declared not only that he will not be approving the ordination of female deacons, but that little girls of today will never see that opportunity.
As reported in America Magazine by my former colleague and Vatican reporter Colleen Dulle, when asked by 60 Minutes’ Norah O’Donnell, “I’m curious, for a little girl growing up Catholic today, will she ever have the opportunity to be a deacon and participate as a clergy member in the church?”, the Pope replied: “No.”
O’Donnell was clearly surprised by this—as was pretty much everyone, given the fact that he has in fact opened two commissions to study the possibility of female deacons and it is a topic being considered by the Synod on Synodality, which doesn’t reconvene until October. Thinking he might have thought she was talking about female priests, O’Donnell restated her question, pointing out the ongoing conversations going on.
But Francis made it clear, he knew exactly what she had said. “If it is deacons with Holy Orders, no. But women have always had, I would say, the function of deaconesses without being deacons, right? Women are of great service as women, not as ministers, as ministers in this regard, within the Holy Orders.”
Here's the full interview. The part in question goes from 21:30-23:45.
For those who might be wondering, Is it weird for a pope to be making major announcements of policy on an American news program, Um, Yeah. It is. Real weird.
And given just how troubling and painful this news is, we might also ask, Where is Francis’ basic sense of care and concern for women? How could he drop a bombshell like that in a ******** online Q&A?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Pop Culture Spirit Wow to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.