Pew Research surveyed 5,676 Catholics from seven countries: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico and the United States.

Catholics in these countries overwhelmingly favour the Church permitting birth control. Support for contraception ranged from 86% in Argentina to 63% in Brazil, the largest Catholic-majority nation.

Across all seven countries, most respondents expressed their desire for the Church to be more flexible on this issue.

There was also significant support for the ordination of women - except in Mexico where only 47% were in favour.

In Argentina, support for female priests has surged from 51% in 2013-14 to 71% today.

Opposition to married priests

Catholics in Mexico showed resistance to changes in other areas, with a majority opposing the idea of allowing priests to marry. In contrast, other countries surveyed were more divided on the issue of priestly celibacy.

The survey highlights divisions among Catholics on several key issues, particularly regarding the Church's stance on same-sex marriage and allowing priests to marry.

In Colombia, the majority of Catholics do not support the recognition of same-sex marriages, and opinions on married priests vary widely across the region.

Religiosity plays a significant role in shaping these opinions. Catholics who pray daily or attend Mass regularly are less likely to support changes such as women's ordination or the recognition of same-sex marriages.

For example, only 38% of Mexican Catholics who attend Mass weekly support recognising gay and lesbian marriages, compared to 52% of Catholics who attend less frequently.

Age is another key factor influencing these views. Younger Catholics across Latin America are more likely to support progressive changes.

Pope Francis remains popular

Despite differing views on specific issues, Pope Francis remains popular among Catholics in Latin America and the US. However, his favourability ratings have dropped compared to the early years of his papacy.

In the US, 75% of Catholics view him favourably, down from 85% in 2014. His home country of Argentina saw the most significant drop, with 74% viewing him favourably today compared to 98% a decade ago.

Catholics who pray daily tend to view Pope Francis more favourably than those who pray less often. For instance, in Mexico, 40% of Catholics who pray daily have a very favourable view of the Pope, compared to 29% of other Catholics.

Overall, two-thirds of Catholics surveyed across the US and Latin America hold a favourable view of Pope Francis. Many see him as a figure of change, with a majority noting that his papacy represents a significant shift in the direction of the Church.

Sources

UCA News

Catholic Culture

Pew Research Center

The initiative seeks to respond to women's longstanding demands to have a greater say in Church life.

Church reform

The Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith says the new document will form its contribution to Pope Francis' Church reform process, the Synod on Synodality.

The Synod is entering its second main phase with the next meeting of bishops this coming October.

The Vatican announced the details of the doctrinal document shortly after its news conference.

That conference - which four men led - described the preparatory work for the October meeting. Media were not given the opportunity to ask questions.

The smallest gesture

A group pressing for women's ordination promptly dismissed the new doctrinal document as "crumbs".

They noted ordained men would again be making decisions about women's roles in the Church.

Members of ten study groups will be looking into some tough, legally complicated issues that have arisen in the reform process to date.

These include the role of women and LGBTQ+ Catholics in the life of the church.

Unequal work, contribution and rights

Catholic women reportedly do most of the Church's work in schools and hospitals. They also tend to be those more likely to pass the faith on to future generations.

But many complain of a second-class status in a Church which reserves the priesthood for men only.

Francis has reaffirmed the ban on women priests but has appointed several women to senior Vatican positions.

He also encourages debate on other ways to hear women's voices.

The synod process is once such place, as women there have the right to vote on specific proposals. Voting rights until now have been restricted to men.

Francis had appointed two commissions to study whether women could be ordained deacons - those who can, though not priests, perform many priestly functions.

They may preside at weddings, baptisms and funerals, and preach. They cannot celebrate Mass.

Women respond

The Women's Ordination Conference says relegating the women deacons issue to the doctrine office doesn't suggest the Church is looking to involve women any more than now.

"The urgency to affirm women's full and equal place in the Church cannot be swept away, relegated to a shadowy commission or entrusted into the hands of ordained men at the Vatican" the women protest.

These groups will be working with the Vatican after the synod, suggesting this year's results may not be final.

After the 2023 session the synod summary made no mention of homosexuality, although the working document had specifically noted calls for a greater welcoming of "LGBTQ+ Catholics" and other marginalised people into the Church.

Instead, the summary said people who feel marginalised because of their marital situation, "identity and sexuality, ask to be listened to and accompanied, and their dignity defended".

Francis has since approved priests blessing same-sex couples.

Source

• AP News

"Women cannot be called to this office" Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller stated during an interview with Swiss portal kath.ch on 7 June.

Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, explained that the exclusion of women from priestly ordination is rooted in the sacrament itself.

He emphasised the theological belief that, while all people are fundamentally equal in their relationship with God, only men can embody the role of Christ within the Church.

Just as "a man cannot become a mother and a woman cannot become a father", it is only men who are called to the priesthood Müller said

"The vocation comes from God. One would have to complain to God himself that he created human beings as man and woman."

He also referenced the symbolic nature of the Church which is traditionally viewed as female, with Mary, the Mother of God, serving as its archetype. Thus, Müller asserted "Only a man can represent Christ in relation to the Church".

The Church "must not change this"

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, echoed Müller's sentiments.

Speaking at ITI Catholic University in Austria on 1 June, Schönborn expressed his conviction that the Church "cannot and must not change this because it must keep the mystery of women present in an unadulterated way".

"We were all born of a woman. This will always be reflected in the mystery of the Church."

He stressed the importance of maintaining the Church's traditional teaching on this issue, as Pope John Paul II articulated in 1994.

In his apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, John Paul II declared that the Church has "no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women" and that this teaching must be "definitively held by all the Church's faithful".

Sources

Catholic News Agency

Catholic World Report

CathNews New Zealand

At Duke University, I majored in religious studies and then served as pastoral assistant and director of religious education in a small church in upstate New York.
Then, in the summer of 1967, I went to Tucson to study creative movement expression education at the Tucson Creative Dance Center.

Now, where would I go to church? There was time and opportunity to explore.

Exploring the options

I visited the Methodists, the Presbyterians and the Lutherans, but no particular place beckoned.

I had already ruled out the Catholic church — but then the maintenance man at the dance center convinced me to give it a try.

"Go to a 6 a.m. Mass. You'll still have time to go somewhere else after that."

I snuck into a back pew at 5:45 and knelt down, unprepared for what was to follow.

The priest appeared, looking like he had just rolled out of bed, kissed the altar, mumbled, "The Lord be with you," and then snorted and wiped his nose across the sleeve of his alb!

What immediately went through my mind was, "These people are not here for this man, They must be here for ... God!"

Laugh if you will, but I knew at that moment I would become a Catholic. What about my call to ordination? No worries. It was 1968. Vatican II. Change was in the air. All I had to do was be patient. Ordination of women was just around the corner.

Waiting

A few years later, I was a full-fledged Catholic.

I worked at a parish school for more than 15 years, first as a teacher and then as a liturgist.

When it came time for a change, I took a year off to write and live under private religious vows, supplementing my savings with part time jobs.

Over the years, I earned a master's in pastoral ministry from the University of San Francisco, along with certificates in spiritual direction and therapeutic harp work.

I then went to work for 15 years as a certified music practitioner, playing my harp at the bedside of patients at a hospice inpatient unit.

It was a "holy ground" experience. The unit felt like a church, and the patients like beloved parishioners.

Becoming a chaplain

The hospice was looking to increase its number of chaplains, so I enrolled in the ordination programme at the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies, a two-year, low residency programme in New York City.

There were three women in the accelerated programme — all three of us Catholic! All denied ordination by our own church, nevertheless grateful for this path to ordination as interfaith ministers.

After retirement from hospice, and until COVID-19 shut everything down, I volunteered weekly as a chaplain and bedside harpist at a Tucson hospital.

Now I write for the Keeping the Faith section of the Sunday edition of the Arizona Daily Star, drawing on the many years of work for the Catholic church and the broader Christian community.

I have no complaints. But I will forever ask, "Why?"

Why couldn't I be ordained by my own church for service in hospice, hospital, a retreat center, the military, a women's prison, a battered women's shelter, a parish church? Read more

• Carolyn Ancell is a writer and musician in Tucson, Arizona. She has authored 18 books and numerous articles on liturgy and the liturgical arts and is a retired "chaplain with a harp."

Nonetheless, she hopes the Catholic Church will continue to explore the topic of women's leadership with "courage".

"I'm aware ... that to many such an opportunity feels rare, if not historic. I'm thankful for the privilege, and equally want to honour the risk Pope Francis surely took in welcoming it" she wrote.

Wells - who is the deputy secretary-general of the Anglican Communion - was one of three women to meet with Francis and his so-called "C9" group of nine cardinals on 5 February.

The C9 meet each quarter to advise Francis on church governance.

The group's last two meetings have focused on the role of women in the church.

Ecumenical engagement

Including both women and an Anglican woman bishop for the first time ever at the usually all-male meeting suggests Francis sees the value of ecumenical engagement.

That engagement is "not only for collaboration between churches but for listening and learning from each other" Wells says.

According to Wells, Salesian Sr Linda Pocher (from Rome's Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences "Auxilium") organised the session for Francis.

Ordained women

Pocher asked her - as an Anglican woman bishop - "to speak to the story of the ordination of women in the Church of England and in the Anglican Communion, offering a personal perspective as well as the broader ecclesial journey" Wells said.

Francis has expanded the Catholic Church's dialogue with both the Anglican Communion and with women's ministries throughout his papacy.

Wells said she told Francis and the C9 the story of Florence Li Tim-Oi who (because of extenuating circumstances) in 1944 became the first woman to be ordained to the Anglican priesthood.

At the time, it was impossible for male priests to visit her Chinese congregation in Macau.

Nearly 50 years later in 1992, the Church of England's General Synod voted to ordain women - though certain parishes don't have to accept ordained women as priests.

In Rome, Wells said, she discussed the "levels of decision-making in regard to women in the three orders of deacon, priest and bishop" with the pope and cardinals.

She said the pope and cardinals "listened graciously, evidenced from their questions and the discussion which followed".

In addition, she said she is impressed by the ongoing synod on synodality, where topics include questions about ordaining women to the diaconate and priesthood.

The "urgent need" for expanded roles for women's ministry, as the synod's synthesis report described it, is expected to top the agenda when synod delegates reconvene in Rome this October.

"We might expect that, whatever the path ahead in terms of women and ordination, the Spirit will be at work to affirm and harness the gifts and graces invested in women for the sake of the whole body of Christ" said Wells of the synod.

Pocher said after the women met with Francis and the C9 that she believes that Francis is "very much in favour of the female diaconate". Women's ordination remains out of bounds for him however.

Source

• NCR

A new book, "The Synodal Process Is a Pandora's Box: 100 Questions and Answers," addresses the "serious situation" brought on by the synod, Cardinal Raymond Burke (pictured, centre) says.

Pope Francis is risking confusion and even schism in leading the upcoming Synod on Synodality in Rome, Burke writes in the book's preface.

"Synodality and its adjective, synodal, have become slogans behind which a revolution is at work to change radically the Church's self-understanding, in accord with a contemporary ideology which denies much of what the Church has always taught and practised," he continues.

It should concern all Catholics "who observe the evident and grave harm" that it has brought on the church.

The word synodality, the cardinal added, is "a term which has no history in the doctrine of the Church and for which there is no reasonable definition."

It leads to "confusion and error and their fruit — indeed schism," he says in the preface.

He backs this view citing the German Synodal Path, where church leaders consulted with lay and religious Catholics in Germany between December 2019 and March 2023.

Female ordination and blessing same-sex couples were among the issues the German consultation explored.

"With the imminent Synod on Synodality, it is rightly to be feared that the same confusion and error and division will be visited upon the universal Church. In fact, it has already begun to happen through the preparation of the Synod at the local level," Burke wrote.

The only way to uncover the "ideology at work" within the Vatican and "undertake true reform," was to turn to the "unchanging and unchangeable doctrine and discipline of the church," Burke's preface says.

He entrusted to the Virgin Mary his prayer that "the grave harm which presently threatens the Church be averted."

The synod on synodality

Francis's aims for the synod are to promote inclusivity, transparency and accountability in the Church.

After three years of world-wide consultations with Catholics, bishops and lay Catholics will gather in Rome in October under the rubric of "Synodality: Communion, Participation and Mission."

Agenda items drawn from concerns Catholics raised in diocesan forums include LGBTQ Catholics' inclusion and female leadership.

Those topics have convinced conservative Catholics that the synod will lead to changes in Catholic doctrine on questions of morality and sexuality.

The authors, the publisher and Burke

Co-authors José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo de Izcue are South American scholars and activists.

The publisher Tradition, Family and Property says "despite its potentially revolutionary impact, the debate around this synod has been limited primarily to ‘insiders' and the general public knows little about it."

Burke has long been a vocal opponent of Pope Francis's vision for the church.

He and three other cardinals publicly questioned Francis's decision in "Amoris Laetitia" for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist. Burke has also criticised efforts in the church to promote the welcoming of LGBTQ faithful.

Source

• Religion News Service
• America Magazine

Speaking at the Conciliar Seminary in Mexico City under the title "Joyful Servants of the Gospel," the prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stressed that no individual can invent a female priesthood.

"No council, no synod, no ecclesiastical authority has the power to invent a female priesthood ... without seriously damaging the perennial physiognomy of the priest, his sacramental identity, within the renewed ecclesiological vision of the Church, mystery, communion and mission," emphasised Sarah.

In his address, Cardinal Sarah highlighted the priesthood as a divine gift that cannot be reduced to cultural or environmental factors.

Emphasising the universality of the priesthood, Cardinal Sarah expressed that the sacrament of Holy Orders, instituted by Christ, is a singular entity that transcends geographical and cultural boundaries.

"For Jesus, there is no African, German, Amazonia or European priesthood. The priesthood is unique, it is identical for the universal Church."

Priesthood a great gift

During his discourse, Sarah also delved into the profound nature of the priesthood and stressed that "the priesthood is a great, great mystery, so great a gift that it would be a sin to waste it."

He underscored the importance of receiving, understanding and living out this divine vocation, highlighting the priest's role as an alter Christus—an embodiment of Christ himself—and a mediator between God and humanity.

Cardinal Sarah emphasised the essential role of prayer in the life of a priest. He stressed that prayer is the primary duty of a priest, who starts the day with the Office of Readings and ends it with the Evening Prayer.

"A priest who does not pray is about to die. A Church that does not pray is a dead Church," he warned.

Sources

Catholic News Agency

CathNews New Zealand

In an interview with America Magazine, Francis responded to a question posed by Kerry Webber, executive editor of the magazine published by the Jesuits of the United States:

"Many women feel pain because they cannot be ordained priests. What would you say to a woman who is already serving in the life of the Church but who still feels called to be a priest?"

The Holy Father was unequivocal in his response:

"And why can a woman not enter ordained ministry? It is because the Petrine principle has no place for that," the pope said.

"The ministerial dimension, we can say, is that of the Petrine church. I am using a category of theologians. The Petrine principle is that of ministry," the Holy Father said.

A theology of the ‘Marian principle'

The pope explained that there is another "theological" way in which women play a vital role in Church life.

The dignity of women, he said, reflected the spousal nature of the Church, which he called the "Marian principle".

"The way is not only [ordained] ministry. The Church is woman. The Church is a spouse. We have not developed a theology of women that reflects this," Pope Francis said.

"The Petrine principle is that of ministry.

"But there is another principle that is still more important, about which we do not speak, that is the Marian principle, which is the principle of femininity in the Church, of the woman in the Church, where the Church sees a mirror of herself because she is a woman and a spouse.

"A church with only the Petrine principle would be a church that one would think is reduced to its ministerial dimension, nothing else. But the Church is more than a ministry.

"It is the whole people of God.

"The Church is woman. The Church is a spouse. Therefore, the dignity of women is mirrored in this way," the pope said.

"Therefore, that the woman does not enter into the ministerial life is not a deprivation.

"No. Your place is that which is much more important and which we have yet to develop, the catechesis about women in the way of the Marian principle," he said.

"There is a third way: the administrative way.

"The ministerial way, the ecclesial way, let us say, Marian, and the administrative way, which is not a theological thing, it is something of normal administration. And, in this aspect, I believe we have to give more space to women," Pope Francis said.

Theologians must explore and venture

At a recent meeting with members of the International Theological Commission, Pope Francis told the Commission that it is the vocation of the theologian is always to risk going further because they are seeking and they are trying to make theology clearer.

"The theologian dares to go further, and it will be the magisterium that will stop them," the pope said.

Theologians must explore and "venture" out further to help enrich doctrine while catechists must stick to established, "solid" doctrine, never anything new, Pope Francis told theologians.

The pope singled out the women members on the Theological Commission, saying women bring a different intellectual perspective to theology, which can make it "more profound and more ‘flavourful'."

Francis suggested that the prestigious ITC could consider including more women in their group.

In September, women's role in the Catholic Church was the focus of a New Zealand group working for gender equality in Church leadership.

A media release from a group called "Be the Change, Catholic Church, Aotearoa" notes New Zealand women's suffrage was granted on 19 September 1893, and the September anniversary shows the Catholic Church is 129 years behind New Zealand in recognising the leadership skills of women.

To mark women's suffrage and highlight God's call for the Church to allow women to exercise their gifts, on 18 September, Catholic women in Auckland and Wellington mounted an installation of women's shoes at their respective cathedrals.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• CathNews New Zealand
• CathNews New Zealand
• CathNews New Zealand

The lay women surveyed say these frustrations are barriers to them fulfilling their ministerial paths in the church.

Entitled "Mainstreaming Women's Ministries in the Roman Catholic Church," the survey was conducted by the Women's Ordination Conference (WOC).

Of the 224 young Catholic lay women in formation and ministry in the U.S. who responded, 82 percent of respondents think women's ministries are not valued equally to men's.

In addition, 80 percent are dissatisfied with the ministry opportunities available to them in the global church, and 73 percent said the same about local opportunities.

Survey respondents overwhelmingly described their Catholic identity as "extremely important." Eighty-two percent attend Mass at least once a week.

"What this survey affirms is that women of the church are overwhelmingly educated and trained and thoughtful Catholic leaders, and they will persist," says Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference.

However, they will only "persist to a point," McElwee says.

Young Catholics are choosing to disaffiliate with the institutional church.

"It's a loss that's happened for many generations before this one, and our hope is that we can work to support these women to stall their exit," she says.

McElwee says the survey responded to the WOCs Young Feminist Network and Women's Ordination Conference members' struggles with ministerial discernment after completing pastoral degrees.

The survey report cites women's inclusion and ordination as the two most common changes respondents wished to see in the church. Thirty percent of respondents say they would pursue ordination in the diaconate or priesthood if they could.

Although many respondents identified vocations that did not fit within the existing structure of the institutional church, 82 percent would not seek ordination through an independent Catholic movement.

McElwee says this result is "surprising."

"A lot of the members of the WOC really look to those movements as prophetic witnesses, living their vocation and modeling a new, renewed ministry," she says.

"To see that that really didn't seem like an option to the survey respondents is interesting for our movement to consider."

McElwee says the WOCs primary goal now is to "listen to the women who took the survey and to respond as a community" in the form of discussion groups and conversations among members of the Women's Ordination Conference and its Young Feminist Network.

The survey and the discussion it generates will show "women who are persisting in their faith and in their ministry and in their careers know that they're not alone," she says.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

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.

Source

• Crux
• LifeSite
• Image: Crux Now

The article focuses on the increasing numbers of women entering the clergy, particularly in Christian denominations, claiming a "right" they had previously been denied.

More than that, the article claimed that a further consequence of this shift: an increase in perception of a feminine vision of God.

Dr. Serene Jones, first female president of the Union Theological Seminary, was quoted as saying: "We're seeing a new day of understanding of who God is," Dr. Jones added.

"When the people who are representing God, making God present, have female bodies, that inevitably changes the way you think about how God is."

She predicts this shift "will powerfully reshape Americans' understanding of God from stern father to more of a maternal healer and nurturer."

Set aside for a moment some of the articles more tendentious claims. (Are fathers not nurturing? Can mother's not be stern? Is Christ not routinely portrayed as a healer?)

Though it mentions in passing a few times that the Catholic Church is "behind" in this movement because it only ordains men, the arguments of Dr. Jones only help to confirm the Church's teaching—because the Church agrees with her argument, but says that her premise is wrong.

There can be no doubt that the characteristics of God's representatives have always affected people's perceptions of God, for good and ill.

Holy priests and ministers have long inspired people, and immoral clergy have been a perennial stumbling block to the faith of the laity—"How can I believe in God if this is the best He can give us?"

But this argument gets at something deeper, that the most fundamental aspects of a person can be representative of God.

Proponents of female clergy often argue, as Dr. Jones does above, that women are needed in ministerial roles in order to bring out an aspect of God that is absent in the symbolism of a male cleric.

Of course, God in His essence is neither male or female, neither essentially masculine or feminine.

However, God, in His relation to His creation, does have a masculine aspect.

This is clear in the way God has revealed Himself, and is fundamental to the Church's understanding of the priesthood.

The priest represents God who reveals Himself as "Father" (Scripture never uses a female pronoun to refer to God).

The priest acts in the person of Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, who became human as a man.

The liturgy is our participation in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb to His Bride the Church, with the priest representing the Bridegroom.

For all these reasons, in order to be a fitting sign of God, the priest must be a man.

And since the Sacrament of Holy Orders is one sacrament with three orders within it, the same applies to all three orders.

The priest not only represents God ex officio, by virtue of his appointment as a minister.

In the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest is conformed to the character of Christ the priest at the very level of his being—an ontological change, leaving an indelible mark.

The priest is made permanently into a living symbol of God. Thus, who he is matters.

Curiously, then, both sides agree that the minister provides a "sign value" for God and communicates to us something of who God is.

It is just who God is, and how God relates to us, that is the point of disagreement.

While those who favor women as ministers often speak of terms in equality and fairness, we see, especially in the Catholic context, that those who agitate for women's ordination often have further agenda items.

Very often proponents of female ordination discuss the issue not only in terms like equality, but also "representation," in a political sense, that women need to be represented in "decision-making."

Dig deeper, and you find that they want women to become clergy in order to change other teachings.

Those who say women ought to be ordained as Catholic priests are saying that the Church's teaching on the Sacrament of Holy Orders is wrong, and we should not be surprised when we find that this is not the only area in which they believe the Church has erred.

Female ordination advocates also routinely promote abortion, contraception, same-sex relationships, and any other of a number of the "usual suspects" of dissenters.

They do not simply want to serve the Church; they want to change the Church.

Two ironies suggest themselves.

First, the proponents of female clergy often vociferously denounce clericalism, yet their position implies that the clergy are the "real Christians," or the important ones—that one cannot participate meaningfully in the Church unless one is ordained.

They see ordination as a form of power than a call to service.

It is the error of Simon Magus, dressed up in new clothes.

Second, the idea of female clergy and "the feminine divine" are being lauded precisely at the same moment in which we are being told that gender is fluid and a construct and both essentially meaningless and deeply meaningful to one's identity.

What does it mean to be a female priest when we no longer seem certain what it means to be female?

• Nicholas Senz is is Director of Children's and Adult Faith Formation at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Arlington, TX. He holds Master's degrees in philosophy and theology from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA.
• First published in Catholic World Report. Reprinted with permission.

He says maleness is "an indispensable element" of the priesthood and the Church is "bound" by Christ's decision only to choose male apostles.

Ladaria's opinion reflects a 1994 decree issued by St John Paul in which he said: "the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women."

St John Paul also said this teaching should be "definitively held" by all Catholics.

Some theologians argue this ruling is not considered infallible, as St John Paul did not proclaim the teaching " ex cathedra" (from the Chair of St Peter), as is required for popes when they make infallible pronouncements.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, for example, believes the question of female ordination need to be settled by a church council and not from the "desk of a Pope."

Ladaria holds the opposite view.

"Sowing these doubts creates serious confusion among the faithful not only about the sacrament of orders as part of the divine constitution of the church but also about how the ordinary magisterium can teach Catholic doctrine in an infallible way," he says.

He also points out infallible teaching is not only proclaimed by a council or a Pope speaking "ex cathedra," but is also proclaimed by bishops across the world who, in communion with the Pope, propose doctrine that should be "held definitively."

Ladaria says St John Paul II consulted with leaders of episcopal conferences about this matter. He did not wish to "work alone" but sought to ensure he was listening to an "uninterrupted and lived tradition."

Pope Francis endorsed this in 2015, saying it was after "long, long intense discussions" St John Paul had issued his ruling on women's ordination.

"He did not declare new dogma, but with the authority conferred on him as successor of Peter, he formally confirmed and made explicit - to remove any doubt - that which the ordinary and universal magisterium had considered as belonging to the deposit of faith throughout the history of the church," Ladaria says.

We Are Church International (WACI) this week strongly rejected Archbishop Ladaria's claim that the ban on ordaining women to Catholic priesthood has a "definitive character" and "is a truth belonging to the deposit of faith."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• The Tablet
• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic Herald

He says they will be excommunicated from the church.

Brandmüller is one of the four "dubia" cardinals who has repeatedly asked Pope Francis to provide doctrinal clarity about some elements of Amoris Laetitia.

He was responding to comments by German politician Annegret Kramp-Karrenbaue.

Kramp-Karrenbaue, who is the General-Secretary of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told the Die Zeit newspaper on 10 May: "It is very clear: women have to take positions of leadership in the church."

She also said although she hoped for the ordination of female priests, a more realistic goal might be to concentrate on a "female diaconate."

Brandmüller says the question of female priests was authoritatively ruled out by Pope John Paul II.

In his opinion, the persistent demand for female priests, celibacy, intercommunion and remarriage after divorce will not bring about a revival of Catholics as is expected.

He notes that the German Evangelical Church - "where all these demands have already been actually fulfilled" - shows that "such demands have had the effect of emptying out the churches."

He also reminded Kramp-Karrenbauer (who is widely regarded as the frontrunner to succeed Angela Merkel as German Chancellor) that the Catholic Church is not "a human institution" but a community of those who believe in Jesus Christ, and it is "founded through the Sacraments."

Brandmüller pointed out that the Church lives according to the "forms, structures and laws as given to her by her Divine Founder about which no man has power [to change] - also no pope and no council."

He commented that it is "astonishing" that certain themes were being kept alive within the German Church.

In his view they are "always the same: female priesthood, celibacy, intercommunion, remarriage after divorce. Just recently there has been added the Church's ‘yes' to homosexuality."

Source

• Catholic Herald
• The Tablet
• Image: OnePeterFive