The interior architecture of the Vatican provides some clues to its customs and political organization. Many departments of the Vatican curia, such as the powerful Secretary of State, barely had women’s toilets until relatively recently. The situation has been transformed in recent times. But the employees in some areas still have to walk several corridors to find a service that has been improvised or built with the change of era. A symptom of what has happened within the Leonine walls, where the presence of women has increased in the last decade by around 6% in Vatican City and has almost doubled in the dicasteries, according to data from the Holy Campus.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio set himself in 2013 to increase the number of women in the Church, especially in relevant positions that would mark the direction that the institution will take in the coming years. The changes have not been huge. But the idea of a certain normality is established. “It is not good to do it too fast. There is still reluctance and the changes in the Church have to be smooth. Here it is measured in centuries, not years, ”says a person who talks to the Pope.
The latest appointment has been that of the nun Raffaella Petrini as number two of the Vatican City, the highest-ranking woman in the smallest state in the world. Its function will be organizational and managerial. You will have a male superior. But it represents another step in the Pope’s reforms in this area that adds to the appointment of Charlotte Kreuter-Kirchhof, new number two of the Council of Economy only 20 days ago.
The first major female appointment that Francis made was that of the new director of the Vatican Museums. Barbara Jatta became the first woman to hold that position in December 2016, replacing the charismatic Antonio Paolucci. The institution he directs is essential for the dissemination of culture. But it is also the main source of income for finances in the red. Jatta was until then the only woman who attended Curia meetings. And today she is still the only one who does not have a man above her.
Francisco had also appointed COPE correspondent Paloma García Ovejero a few months earlier as deputy director of the Vatican press office. He resigned a year and a half later along with the then director, Greg Burke, due to disagreements in the way of managing communication. After that, the Pope also contemplated appointing a woman as number one of the Economy and Communication departments, but in the end it did not come together for different reasons. On the other hand, it did materialize the arrival of the Salesian nun Alessandra Smerilli as number two of the Integral Human Development Service, which, among others, promotes projects in favor of refugees. Or that of the Italian Francesca Di Giovanni as undersecretary of the Section for Relations with States, which is the highest position held by a woman in the control room of the Holy See. Along the same lines, in August 2020, the Argentine pope signed the Spanish lawyers, Concha Osacar and Eva Castillo, the British Ruth Mary Kelly and Lesile Jane Ferrar, and the German Marija Kolak as members of the Council for the Economy of the Holy See.
The Vatican was to set a clear direction for the episcopal conferences. Also in the prevention of sexual abuse and of power over religious women, one of the worst and most silent scourges of the Church. But its implementation continues to be irregular in each country. Lucetta Scaraffia, former director of the women’s supplement L’Osservatore Romano Women, Church, World he looks to France to celebrate the “few” openings that he considers important. “The latest appointments are good, but they run the risk of ending up being just a front. Women are very scattered and few in a male clerical environment. I would say that there is a lack of more substantial reforms, such as the one France has done for the seminars ”.
Join EL PAÍS now to follow all the news and read without limits
Subscribe here
Scaraffia refers to an initiative that will oblige all seminaries to have a female presence when evaluating the suitability of candidates to enter the institution. Also to give the final approval of his entry into the priesthood. An idea already launched by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops. “For a priest or a seminarian, the woman represents the danger. In reality, the real danger is men who do not have a balanced relationship with women. That is the danger of the priesthood and what we must radically change, “he said in an interview.
Advances in other countries, such as Germany, are also occurring faster. The Germanic church, in fact, started a synod last year to study the possible expansion of the limits of the Church on issues such as homosexuality and celibacy. Also the possibility of ordering women. The Pope then agreed to study the role of women in the early years of Christianity by a commission to determine if they could become deaconesses. A grade lower than the priesthood. That is the border.
One of the most important changes came last February, when the Pope first elected a woman as undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops: the French nun Nathalie Becquart. It is an assembly of bishops from the different regions of the world that advises the Pontiff and debates on specific doctrinal and pastoral questions. The nun, born in Fontainebleau (France) in 1969 and who was already a consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops since 2019, is the first woman with the right to vote. But the female sector asks that this right be extended to each of these specific assemblies.
The Spanish Cristina Inogés, precisely, was in charge of opening the last synod in the Vatican dedicated to synodality (how to make decisions in a more collegiate way in the Church) at the beginning of October. The theologian believes that “recent changes mark a line in which there will be no going back.” “Many women settle in key positions. Petrini’s appointment breaks another glass ceiling, but the presence of women has been more real and substantial since Francisco arrived. But much remains to be done and the great challenge is the pastoral commissions, there is the battle. That would mean the restructuring of many positions in the Church, which is what this synod was about. A rethinking of the dioceses themselves. And these are already long-term challenges ”. It will be time, then, to make reforms in the interiors of the Holy See.
Follow all the international information at Facebook and Twitter, or in our weekly newsletter.
#Pope #Francis #bets #moderately #women