ACI Prensa Staff, Feb 6, 2024 / 15:55 pm (CNA).
The pope’s Council of Cardinals concluded a meeting at the Vatican this morning with Pope Francis to reflect on “the role of women in the Church.”
Three women also participated in the Feb. 5-6 meeting, notably including a female Anglican bishop, Jo Bailey Wells.
Wells is deputy general secretary of the Anglican Communion and was part of the first generation of women ordained vicars in the Church of England in 1995. She is currently married to an Anglican clergyman and is the mother of two children.
Wells is also known for her advocacy of “gender equality” and for having led an interfaith meeting attended by Pope Francis in Kazakhstan in October 2022. She has also been chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury.
Also present at the meeting with the cardinal advisers of the Holy Father were Giuliva di Berardino, a consecrated woman of the Ordo Virginum (“Order of Virgins”) of the Diocese of Verona, Italy, and Linda Pocher, a teacher at the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences “Auxilium” who previously participated in the last meeting in 2023.
In this most recent session, like the one held in December 2023, the members of the council delved deeper into the topic of the presence of women in the Church.
During the 2023 meeting, the pontiff invited theologians to reflect on the Church as “woman and spouse” and said that “one of the sins committed” has been the tendency to “masculinize the Church.”
The Council of Cardinals, also known as “C9” for its nine members, is the group of cardinals that collaborates directly with Pope Francis in the government of the Church. It has its origin in the general congregations that preceded the conclave in which Pope Francis was elected.
The C9 group has been functioning since September 2013, just six months after Pope Francis assumed the Petrine ministry.
Its objective is to help the pontiff “in the government of the universal Church” as well as to work on a revision of the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus, which governs the Roman Curia, as Pope Francis has stated.
The members of C9 are Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state; Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Governorate of Vatican City State; Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, archbishop of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay, India; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, archbishop of Boston; Cardinal Juan José Omella, archbishop of Barcelona, Spain; Cardinal Gérald Lacroix, archbishop of Quebec, Canada; Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg; and Cardinal Sérgio da Rocha, archbishop of San Salvador de Bahía, Brazil. The secretary of the council is Marco Mellino, titular bishop of Cresima, Tunisia.
Ambongo, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), has become one of the main voices raised against Fiducia Supplicans, the Dec. 18, 2023, document of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that allows the blessing of homosexual couples.
Lacroix has recently been accused of abusing a 17-year-old girl almost four decades ago as part of a lawsuit against his archdiocese. The cardinal “categorically” denies the allegation.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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“The pontiff invited theologians to reflect on the Church as ‘woman and spouse’ and said that ‘one of the sins committed’ has been the tendency to ‘masculinize’ the Church”. Masculinity is God’s natural feature for men, as were the Apostles men. While a feminine presence, as natural exclusively to women is healthy and warranted, the effeminization of men in the Church is the real sin. That’s indicated in papal appointments of homosexual friendly prelates to leading positions at the Vatican.
Father Peter, your quote made me laugh: “‘one of the sins committed’ has been the tendency to ‘masculinize’ the Church” (!!!) (I looked into the report only diagonally so I have not noticed)
I wish it was so! To me, alas, the Church is full of effeminate men with an unresolved Oedipus complex (I share the view of Freud that narcissism often develops as a result of an emotional symbiosis = emotional incest with a mother). No man who is controlled by his mother (in his mind) and who was not emotionally separated from her, by his father, can provide a true father figure for the Church (or for anyone).
Pope Francis shows the features of such a man “under his mother”. His mucking with “a female principle” (Pachamama) is not accidental but an expression of his psyche which worships a female.
As for the “female bishop” = a priest (an oxymoron). Here is the Orthodox argument (one of): a priest is an icon (image) of Christ during the Eucharist. Christ is the Man. An icon of the Last Supper cannot use a woman instead of a man. This is why a priest must be a man.
Once again we see individuals opposed to Catholic teachings taking part in the very highest decision-making councils of our Church.
This is no way to run any organization, let alone the Church Jesus founded.
What result can we expect other than chaos and confusion?
Pope Francis said that “’one of the sins committed’ has been the tendency to ‘masculinize the Church’.”
Perhaps, and yet the other and larger sin throughout society has been to feminize what used to be masculine. One consequence is the pandemic homosexual lifestyle…and for which the Church offers nothing more that–what?–a deliberately ambiguous “blessing!”
A female “bishop” of the Anglican persuasion? Thank God that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), clarified not long after the first pseudo-ordination of Anglican female bishops, is on the books and cannot be easily buried. Still, the optics today speak louder than words.
What? The Church has been ‘masculinized’?
How can that be? Virtually every non-clerical position in every parish I have contact with — and there are a half dozen — is occupied by a woman.
Bergoglio makes the most outrageous statements but he’s never expected to substantiate them.
I’m no theologian, but I’m pretty sure papal infallibility isn’t supposed to extend to just making stuff up and expecting people to take it all seriously.
Once again, we see that Bergoglio is a leftist, first and foremost.
dominus flevit