Female leaders and thinkers: a dialogue with the Pope
and cardinals

Pope Francis’ decision to listen to women in several meetings of the C9, the Council of Cardinals, has been described as a courageous and necessary step toward a Church that better reflects the diversity of its people and engages with women as leaders and thinkers capable of positively influencing the future of the institution.

So far, there have been three meetings, following a plan proposed by theologian Linda Pocher, a member of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. These sessions brought together women who presented various perspectives and experiences to the Pope and the cardinals. Among them were the president of the Italian Coordination of Female Theologians, Lucia Vantini; Anglican Bishop Jo B. Wells; a consecrated member of the Ordo Virginum, Giuliva Di Bernardino; canon lawyer Donata Horak; and economist Valentina Rotondi.

These meetings were held between the first session (October 2023) and the second session (October 2024) of the Synod on Synodality, and the discussions have been charachterized by complete frankness. In the preface to the book Women and Ministries in the Synodal Church (published by Paoline), which is a compilation of contributions from the second meeting, Pope Francis highlights the “provocations offered by the three women” to the C9.

At the heart of the discussion is the issue of women’s priesthood and the diaconate. Wells, who has been an ordained minister for almost thirty years and a bishop for eight, recalled the first ordinations of women in 1994 in the Church of England’s forty-four dioceses: “There were bishops celebrating and bishops absent”. As Di Bernardino emphasized, “the real problem is that, until now, we have sought more uniformity than the unity of the ecclesial body”. She pointed to an example from the clandestine Catholic Church in communist Czechoslovakia, where, in December 1970, Bishop Felix Davideck ordained a woman, Ludmila Javorová. She notes, “After the Velvet Revolution in 1990, the clergy of the underground Church was not listened to; instead, they were forced to join the Orthodox Church because most of the clergy were married men. Ludmila, as a woman, was then obliged to sign the invalidity of her ordination. She obeyed the Church’s directives, keeping the gift she received in her heart”.