O papa Francisco left a legacy of advances in inclusion of women in prominent functions within the Catholic Church. In 2013, when the Argentine was elected, women accounted for 19.2% of Vatican employees. A decade later, they rose to 23.4%.
A survey conducted by Vatican News in 2023 revealed that the number of employees working in the Santa See and the Vatican City Administration had a leap from 846 to 1165 in the first 10 years of the Pontificate of Francisco.
At the time of the promotion of the survey, the Holy See employed 3,114 people, including 812 women. In practice, this means that one in four employees was a woman.
Along the pontificate of Francis, Women won unprecedented appointments for Vatican positions and the right to vote in global bishops. However, there is a limit that the Pope did not exceed: the ordination of women as priests, not even to become diaconis.
The deacon is a position, occupied by men, dedicated to service in the church and in. He cannot celebrate masses, hear confessions or anoint the sick.
In 2016, at the request of a group of nuns, Pope Francis even created a commission at the Vatican to study female diaconate in church history.
The work of this committee ended in 2018 without reaching a consensus. Thus, the Pope created a second commission that, in this case, also gave no unanimous response.
In October 2019, in the final report of the Bishops on the Amazon, there was a mention of the recognition of the “fundamental role of women” in the Amazonian communities and a request for leaders in the region to participate in the discussion about the implementation of female diaconate.
In October 2023, at the first session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops again asked to study the possibility of diaconis in the church.
In May 2024, in an interview with the American station CBS the Pope showed skepticism.
“Not to diaconis women. Giving them space in the church does not mean offering them a ministry,” Francis said adding “but women have always had, I would say, the role of diaconis without being deacons, right? Women are of great use as women, not as ministers within the holy order.”
In his book “Let’s dream together: the way to a better future,” released in 2020, the Pontiff summed up his stance on the presence of women in the church.
“The challenge has been to create spaces in which women can lead, but so that they can shape culture, ensuring that they are valued, respected and recognized,” said the Pope.
On November 6, 2022, in an interview during Bahrain’s return flight, answering a question about women’s right, the Pope spoke of this book:
“A society that cannot put the woman in the place due to her, do not advance. We have experience of this. In the book I wrote, ‘let’s dream together’, I speak of the part they have, for example, in the economy: at this time, there are women economists in the world who have changed the economic perspective and are able to take it from.
In the same interview on the plane, Francis added: “I saw that in the Vatican, whenever a woman enters the work, things get better. For example, Vatican’s deputy governor [secretária-geral do Governatorado, Raffaella Petrini] She is a woman, and things have changed for the better. On the council for the economy, there were six cardinals and six lay people, all men: I changed and, like lay people, put a man and five women. It was a revolution, because women know how to find the righteous way, they know how to move forward. ”
The Pontiff completed the statement: “And now, in the Pontifical Academy for Life, I put a great economist from the United States, Mariana Mazzuccato, to give her a little more humanity. Women contribute to her own. They should not become like men… We need them. We need them. Equal opportunities, equality in the possibility of progressing, because otherwise it is impoverished ”.
In January 2021, the Pope established a change in the Code of Canon Law – the church regulation – to allow women during the Mass to read the Bible and distribute communion – to offer hosts.
Francisco revised the old document promulgated by Pope Paul VI (1972), which specified that only men could receive the ministries of reader and the acceptance, represents the institutionalization of a habitual practice.
Women vote for the first time at the Synod of Bishops
In February 2021, the Pope appointed the French religious Nathalie Becquart as Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, becoming the first woman with a right to vote in the Synodal Assembly. It was a historic milestone that opened the doors for more transformations.
In 2023, Francisco reinforced significant changes in the role of women in the church. That year, the pontiff allowed women to vote for the first time on a global council of bishops.
Before these changes, women could participate only as auditors, without voting the final text that summarizes the guidelines adopted in the summit.
The XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was held in two sessions, the first in October 2023 and the second in October 2024.
According to the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire, the voting members of the Synod were 365 in total, ie 364 plus the pontiff. Of these, 54 were women. Others non -voters were 85, including 27 women.
In that edition, the approved document highlighted Vatican initiatives to expand the space and participation of women in ecclesial structures. The final text said that “there are no reasons that prevent women from assuming leadership roles in the church.”
Appointment of women for leadership positions
In 2021, Pope Francis first appointed a woman secretary, the Italian religious Alessandra Smerilli, who began to act in the dicker for the Integral Human Development Service. That was the highest position ever held by a woman at the time.
Since then, Francis has renovated the structure of the Church when he approved, in 2022, the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium over the Roman Curia, the central government of the Catholic Church.
The new document made it possible for women to direct a dicker, equivalent to a ministry. Thus, women could become mayors, a position that could previously only be held by cardinals and archbishops.
Anyway, in January 2025 ,.
The Brambilla nun was chosen to lead the dickest to the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Apostolic Life Societies, responsible for the supervision of Catholic religious orders around the world. She became the first mayor at the Vatican.
From March 1, 2025, the Franciscan religious Raffaella Petrini began to hold the position of President of the Pontifical Commission for the State of the Vatican City, as well as president of the governance. Her appointment had already been announced by Francis on January 19 of this same year.
Over the course of 12 years of papacy, other positions were also attributed by Francisco to women. During this time they began to occupy “second in command” functions in different Vatican offices, such as development, family life and press.
In 2017, Francisco also appointed, for the first time, a woman to direct the Vatican museums, Italian historian Barbara Jatta.
Among the women who occupy positions of great relevance in the Vatican is Brazilian journalist Cristiane Murray. Since 2019, she has been running deputy director of the Holy See Press Room, also appointed by Francisco.
Restriction to the female priesthood
Despite encouraging female presence in the Vatican structure, Pope Francis maintained his position contrary to the ordination of women. In 2022, he reaffirmed this stance by highlighting the distinction between the “Marian principle” and the “petrine principle” in an interview with America Magazine magazine.
According to him, Mary represents the feminine dimension of the Church, while Peter symbolizes the male – a distinction that, for the pontiff, is theological and should not be interpreted as a matter of gender equality in the ministry.
In 2024, during a conference on the evolution of the role of men and women according to Christian teachings ,.
Francisco made this statement in reference to what he classified as “gender ideology”.
“I asked studies to be performed on this ideology, which nullifies the differences and makes everything the same,” said the pontiff at the time.
Future of women
In 2024, the International Women in the Vatican Church conference received more than 150 participants, including 10 women honored by Pope Francis.
At the time, the Pontiff made a request for the future of women in the church and in the world: “We help each other, without forcing and without tearing, but with careful discernment, docile to the voice of the Spirit and faithful in communion, to find proper paths for the greatness and role of women to be more valued in the people of God.”
Finally, Francis said that women’s right to education be preserved.
“In the world, where women still suffer so much violence, inequality, injustice and mistreatment -and this is scandalous, especially for those who profess faith in the god ‘born of women’ -there is a serious form of discrimination, which is precisely linked to women’s education. In fact, it is feared in many contexts, but the way for better societies is precisely through the education of girls, girls and women, from which human development, of which the human development is being benefit. We pray and commit to it! ”
