(RNS) — Pope Francis has changed the way the Catholic Church does business and how it needs to engage the world outside the church. But perhaps his most lasting legacy will be his unprecedented work to dismantle sexism in the Catholic Church.
Women have been treated as second-class citizens in the church ever since Mary Magdalene was branded a reformed prostitute because bishops resented her close relationship to Jesus. Discrimination against women, especially professional women, continues today and was recognized by Pope Francis in official church teaching, which now says “ … women continue to encounter obstacles in obtaining fuller recognition of their charism, vocations and place in all the various areas of the Church’s life.”
This came from the Synod on Synodality, six weeks of meetings over two years, that put some cracks in the Catholic glass ceiling. Traditionally, synod participants are all bishops. This time, women were invited to be full-fledged members along with lay men. Their presence shocked some but was eventually applauded by most bishops in attendance.
No doubt, the participants heard testimony from those female participants about the demeaning, dehumanizing and silencing treatment women continue to experience in official Catholic circles. Their groundbreaking presence changed conversations and shaped the final results of the synod. For the very first time in the history of the Catholic Church, professional women were at the table, as voting members, when the final recommendations of the synod were adopted. Pope Francis, in turn, made the synod’s final report official church teaching.
Pope Francis also made changes in the governance of the Catholic Church. He allowed and appointed women to lead significant offices of the Vatican. Formerly, ordination to the priesthood was a prerequisite for these positions. In abolishing this criterion, the pope said the overall mission of the church, not ordination, should take precedence. He acted upon this and appointed two women to positions formerly reserved for bishops.
Pope Francis poses for a picture with participants of the Synod of Bishops’ 16th General Assembly in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
The challenge now is for the values of Pope Francis to trickle down into dioceses and parishes around the world. Seminaries need to involve more women as teachers and ensure prospective priests do not harbor the sexist attitudes that continue to pervade society. Seminarians need to understand that working with professional women as equals in ministry is the way the bishop of Rome sees the future of the church.
Tokenism needs to end, especially in church services where one or two women are marginalized by the overwhelming presence of ordained men.
Pope Francis raised the consciousness of bishops, priests and laity around the issues of sexism and unjust discrimination against women in the Catholic Church. In doing so, he drew the ire of his more conservative brethren.
In particular, the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood and to the permanent diaconate remains neuralgic. While neither happened under Francis, previous popes did not even want these issues to be discussed. Pope Francis took a different view and, at the very least, appointed a commission to study the issue of women deacons.
While Pope Francis may not have claimed to be a feminist, he certainly displayed his understanding that feminism is not about being politically correct. In the church, it is about being sensitive to patriarchy, clericalism, male fragility and clerical privilege. It is about looking at the world, social institutions, interpersonal relations and everything about the church from a woman’s perspective. In the past, when Francis washed the feet of women at Holy Thursday liturgies, he provided a wonderful example for other priests to follow.
Following the close of the Synod on Synodality, several bishops remarked that they could never imagine future synods without the participation of women. Hopefully, there will be no going backwards as the church elects a new pope. Sexism is a sin and Pope Francis underscored this for the benefit of Catholics and the whole world.
(Monsignor Paul V. Garrity is a senior priest of the Archdiocese of Boston. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)