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A former papal nuncio to the United Kingdom says it is is “intolerable” that women can’t be ordained to the priesthood.
Archbishop Don Pablo Puente, 88, announced during Mass he planned to write to Pope Francis about the matter the next day.
The president of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla, released a report of Puente’s statement, tweeting “…in the middle” of Mass, Puente “grabbed the microphone and said:
‘Tomorrow, a very strong letter requesting that with urgency women be invested as priests will be sent to His Holiness, the Pope.”
Puente reportedly also said: “We cannot tolerate this flagrant discrimination against women on the part of the Church.”
His words were greeted with applause from “a goodly part” of the thousand people at the Mass, Revilla said.
Afterward, Revilla went into the sacristy to embrace Puente.
Despite Puente’s strong words, the chances of women being ordained are unlikely.
Pope Francis is on record as being opposed to the ordination of women.
He says won’t turn on the decision on female ordination made by his predecessor, Pope St John Paul II.
“It was a serious thing, not capricious.”
Francis says St John Paul “was clear and closed the door” to women becoming priests with his 1994 letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis”.
The letter, which was addressed to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the topic of “reserving priestly ordination to men alone”, explains:
“[P]riestly ordination, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his Apostles of teaching, sanctifying and governing the faithful, has … from the beginning always been reserved to men alone…”
Although ordaining women seems out of the question, earlier this year Francis referred to the possibility of ordaining female deacons while he was speaking to the assembly of 850 superiors of women’s religious congregations in Rome.
“In regard to the diaconate we must see what was there at the beginning of revelation, if there was something, let it grow and it arrives, but if there was not, if the Lord didn’t want a sacramental ministry for women, it can’t go forward,” Francis said.
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