A Prayer for letting Go of Grief

 

Pope Leo XIV Says Equality Must Be More Than Words—Does That Include Women in the Church? by Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

Pope Leo XIV on day of his election - St.Peter’s Square, Vatican 

Pope Leo XIV has made several encouraging statements about the equality and dignity of women. As a woman priest who has worked for decades for full equality for women in the Roman Catholic Church, I welcome these affirmations.

At the same time, I believe they raise an unavoidable question: If women and men are truly equal in dignity, baptism and discipleship, why does the institutional Church continue to exclude women from ordained ministry?

This is the conversation I hope Pope Leo will eventually be willing to have with women in the Church.

On International Women’s Day, March 8, 2026, Pope Leo XIV made a simple but significant declaration:

“We renew our commitment, which for us Christians is based on the Gospel, to recognize the equal dignity of man and woman.”¹

I appreciate his insistence that women’s equality is not simply a concession to contemporary culture. It is grounded in the Gospel.

That brings us directly to Jesus.

Jesus repeatedly crossed the religious and cultural boundaries that restricted women. He engaged the Samaritan woman in a profound theological conversation, and she became an evangelizer to her community. Significantly, Pope Leo himself highlighted her role on March 8, calling her “the first of many female evangelizers.”²

The movement of Jesus was radically inclusive for its time. Women were not peripheral to it. They were disciples, witnesses and proclaimers of the Good News.

Jesus welcomed women as disciples and partners in his mission. The Gospel of Luke tells us that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and other women traveled with Jesus and the Twelve and supported the ministry from their own resources (Luke 8:1–3). In a patriarchal culture, Jesus repeatedly crossed religious and social boundaries to affirm women who had been marginalized, silenced, or excluded.

He defended the woman who anointed him when others criticized her (Mark 14:3–9). He praised Mary of Bethany for sitting at his feet in the traditional posture of a disciple learning from a teacher (Luke 10:38–42).

Most significantly, the risen Christ entrusted Mary Magdalene with the proclamation at the heart of Christian faith: “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18). She was commissioned to announce the Resurrection to the other disciples. This is why Christian tradition has honored Mary Magdalene as the “apostle to the apostles.”

Pope Leo in his 2026 encyclical Magnifica Humanitas acknowledges that equality must be more than words.

He shared that although awareness of women’s rights has increased, there is still a long way to go before those rights are genuinely guaranteed. Then he makes an observation that I believe has profound implications for the Church:

“It is, therefore, not enough to state simply that men and women have equal dignity and rights.”

Leo explains that equality must be reflected in concrete decisions, including access to education, employment, social and political responsibility, and in whether women’s contributions are actually heard and valued. He concludes that as long as this gap remains, society cannot claim that it fully recognizes women as possessing the same dignity as men.³

I agree wholeheartedly.

But I would invite Pope Leo to apply this same principle to the Roman Catholic Church.

If declaring equality is insufficient for society, can declaring women and men equal in dignity be sufficient for the Church while women remain excluded from sacramental leadership and major areas of ecclesial decision-making?

Equality must become visible in structures as well as statements.

Pope Leo has also offered an important theological foundation for this conversation on equality.

In his April 1, 2026 general audience reflecting on the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, he said:

“Before any distinction of ministry or state of life, the Council affirms the equality of all the baptized.”⁴

This is enormously important.

Baptism is the fundamental sacrament of Christian identity. Through baptism, women and men become equally members of the Body of Christ.

Leo went on to cite Vatican II’s teaching that the baptized share in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and kingly functions.⁵

Here we encounter what I believe is one of the central contradictions in contemporary Catholicism.

Women are equal members of the Body of Chrisr through baptism in Christ’s priestly mission.

Women are created equally in the divine image.

Women receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Women are called to proclaim the Gospel.

Yet women are told that their gender prevents them from receiving Holy Orders.

The question is no longer whether women possess gifts for ministry. Women are already theologians, pastoral leaders, chaplains, educators, canon lawyers, spiritual directors, missionaries and leaders of Catholic communities throughout the world.

The deeper question is whether the institutional structures of the Church reflect the baptismal equality the Church itself proclaims.

During his June 2026 apostolic journey to Spain, Pope Leo returned to Genesis:

“God created ‘humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.’”

Leo taught that in this biblical affirmation is rooted “the inalienable dignity of every human being.”⁶

For me, this is at the heart of the issue.

Women are not secondary images of God.

Women do not image Christ less fully than men.

The risen Christ cannot be confined to male biology.

At baptism, every Christian becomes another Christ—not because of gender, but because we have been immersed into the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

Therefore, when a woman stands at the altar and proclaims the words of Jesus, “This is my body,” she does not cease to be an image of Christ because she is female.

On the contrary, she reveals something the Church urgently needs to see: Christ lives in the whole Body of Christ—female and male and beyond every human category we can name.

Women Are Already Leading the Church now.

Women are not waiting for permission to live their baptismal calling.

Throughout the world, women are leading communities, preaching the Gospel, accompanying the dying, baptizing, teaching theology, advocating for justice, caring for creation and serving people on the margins.

In August 2026, Pope Leo addressed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States and expressed appreciation for the enormous diversity of their ministries and charisms.⁷

Women religious have demonstrated for generations what Spirit-filled leadership looks like.

So have countless lay women.

And so have women called to ordained ministry.

Roman Catholic Women Priests are part of this unfolding story.

We are not leaving the Church.

We are leading the Church into a more inclusive future.

Our inclusive Catholic communities are living examples of ecclesial grassroots renewal. Women and men preside and lead together. LGBTQ+ persons are welcomed. Divorced and remarried Catholics are welcomed. All are invited to the Eucharistic table.

We are experiencing what priestly ministry can become when it moves away from clerical privilege toward a community of baptized equals.

I welcome Pope Leo XIV’s statements affirming women’s equality.

I rejoice when he says that the equal dignity of women and men is rooted in the Gospel.

I applaud his understanding that equality must be embodied in concrete structures rather than simply proclaimed.

And I affirm wholeheartedly his teaching that there is an equality among all the baptized.

What if we follow these principles to their logical and Gospel-centered conclusion:

If women are equal images of God;

if women and men share equally in baptism;

if women participate in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and royal mission;

if the Holy Spirit gives gifts without regard to gender;

and if equality must be reflected in actual structures and responsibilities—

then the Church must confront the contradiction of excluding women from ordained ministry.

The Holy Spirit has never waited for ecclesiastical permission before calling prophets.

I believe the Spirit is moving now through women and men who are creating communities of equality, justice and radical inclusion.

Roman Catholic Women Priests are already living this change now.

We are not asking the Church simply to make room for women within an unchanged clerical system. We are witnessing to something larger: a renewed priestly ministry in a community of equals.

Perhaps Pope Leo’s own words provide a bridge toward that future.

The question now is whether the institutional Church will have the courage to cross it.

Footnotes

1. Pope Leo XIV, Angelus, March 8, 2026, International Women’s Day. Leo stated that Christians’ commitment to recognizing “the equal dignity of man and woman” is “based on the Gospel.” Vatican.va.
2. Ibid. In his reflection on John 4, Leo described the Samaritan woman as “the first of many female evangelizers.”
3. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, Encyclical Letter on the Care of the Human Person in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, May 15, 2026, no. 57. Leo states that it is insufficient simply to declare equal dignity and rights; equality must be embodied in concrete decisions, responsibilities and the valuing of women’s contributions.
4. Pope Leo XIV, General Audience, “The Documents of the Second Vatican Council: Lumen Gentium—Living Stones in the Church and Witnesses in the World,” April 1, 2026.
5. Ibid.; see also Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, no. 31, on the baptized sharing in the priestly, prophetic and kingly functions of Christ.
6. Pope Leo XIV, Address to Diocesan Charitable and Welfare Organizations, Church of Sant Agustí, Barcelona, Spain, June 10, 2026; citing Genesis 1:27 and Magnifica Humanitas, no. 50.
7. Pope Leo XIV, Video Message to the Annual Assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, August 12, 2026, on the occasion of LCWR’s 70th anniversary.

Acknowledgment of AI Assistance

This article reflects the theological perspective, ministry experience and advocacy of Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP. ChatGPT (OpenAI) was used as a research and editorial tool to help locate Pope Leo XIV’s public statements, organize source material, develop the article’s structure and assist with editing and footnote preparation. The author reviewed and shaped the argument, theological interpretation and final conclusions and takes responsibility for the content.

The Last Supper : Artist Robert Klonoski

 

The Last Supper by Artist: Robert Klonoski

After posting my article https://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/2026/08/nausicaa-giulia-bianchis-ordination.html?m=1

On Facebook,  I received this beautiful painting from Robert Klonoski. See his explanation of  his portrayal of the Last Supper.

Dear Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan:

…I'm an artist, and so I think it is important to visually relate a story. The story of the Last Supper, which Leonardo DaVinci painted as a Renaissance-era board meeting of the male followers of Christ, is a misrepresentation. We know that Mary, Christ's mother, Mary Magdeline, Mary Clopas, and Mary Salome were all in Jerusalem at the time of the Last Supper. Passover is a family celebration to which friends might also be in attendance. So, I repainted the Last Supper to include both.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is on the left in the foreground and she is glancing at a person in the right foreground, possibly Joseph, at the moment she hears talk of betrayal and realizes that her son may die soon.

Women Priests Are Not Waiting for the Church to Change—They Are Leading the Church into the Future

 

Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Dcf8_9Oj-ss/?igsi=MWxsbWFyOHY2dGJ4NA==

(Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi's "Ordination" exhibition documents excommunicated Women Catholic Priests, exploring feminism and spirituality as part of Italy's Festival della Fotografia Italiana $

Women Priests Are Not Waiting for the Church to Change—They Are Leading the Church into the Future

By Bridget Mary Meehan, D.Min., ARCWP

It does not look as if Pope Leo XIV is going to move quickly toward the ordination of women.

I hope I am wrong.

Like many Catholics, I welcomed Pope Leo’s emphasis on listening, bridge-building and synodality. I continue to pray that he will listen deeply to the voices of women who have been called by God to ordained ministry and to the communities who affirm these calls.

But women cannot wait for Rome to recognize what the Holy Spirit is already doing.

This is why Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi’s extraordinary photographic exhibition, Ordination — I Think Jesus Was a Feminist, is so timely.

Bianchi’s long-term documentary project on Catholic women priests is being exhibited in Italy as part of the 2026 Festival della Fotografia Italiana. The festival’s theme, Riti e Visioni. Tra spirituale e materiale—“Rituals and Visions: Between the Spiritual and the Material”—explores the relationship between ritual, spirituality, embodiment and the search for transcendence.[^1]

Bianchi spent years documenting the lives and ministries of Catholic women priests who challenged the Vatican prohibition against women’s ordination. Her photographs are more than portraits. They constitute a visual history of a movement that refused to disappear.

We Are Already Here

For decades the institutional Church has debated whether women may be ordained.

Meanwhile, women have been ordained.

We are celebrating Eucharist.

We are preaching the Gospel.

We are baptizing, marrying, anointing and accompanying people through sickness, grief and death.

We are forming inclusive Catholic communities where everyone is welcome at the Eucharistic table.

We are living a renewed model of priestly ministry rooted not in clerical power but in Gospel equality and partnership with the people we serve.

I was ordained a Roman Catholic woman priest on July 31, 2006, aboard the Riverboat Majestic on Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers. My ordination was part of a movement that traces its modern beginning to the seven courageous women ordained on the Danube River in 2002.

The institutional Church responded with excommunications.

But excommunication could not extinguish our calls.

It could not stop communities from gathering.

And it certainly could not stop the Holy Spirit.

Today women priests and the inclusive communities we serve are demonstrating something profoundly important: women’s ordination is no longer simply a theoretical question to be debated by commissions.

It is a lived reality.

Pope Leo and the Closed Door

Pope Leo has inherited a Church in which the question of women’s equality can no longer be postponed indefinitely.

The Synod on Synodality stated clearly that there is no reason women should be prevented from exercising leadership in the Church and that the question of women’s access to the diaconate remains open.[^2]

Yet the Vatican commission studying women deacons concluded that current historical and theological research does not support admitting women to the diaconate while acknowledging that a definitive judgment cannot yet be made.[^3]

More recently, the Vatican rejected a proposal from the German bishops that would have permitted laypeople, including women, to preach the homily at Mass.[^4]

These developments make it difficult for me to believe that Pope Leo is preparing to open ordained priestly ministry to women anytime soon.

But perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking, “When will Rome finally allow women to become priests?” perhaps we should ask:

Where is the Holy Spirit already creating the Church of the future?

Jesus Did Not Ordain Twelve Priests

The argument that Jesus chose only men to exercise priestly authority reflects a later understanding of ministry that should not simply be projected backward onto the Gospel.

Jesus did not ordain the Twelve as Catholic priests.

He called disciples.

And women were among his closest disciples.

Mary Magdalene remained faithful when others fled. She encountered the risen Christ and was commissioned to proclaim the Resurrection to the other disciples.

She became the Apostle to the Apostles.

Phoebe was a deacon and benefactor.

Junia was prominent among the apostles.

Priscilla taught theology alongside Aquila.

Lydia led a house church.

Women proclaimed, taught, evangelized and led communities in the earliest generations of Christianity.

The movement Jesus began was far more radical than the patriarchal structures that later developed around it.

That is why the title of Bianchi’s exhibition makes me smile:

“I Think Jesus Was a Feminist.”

If feminism means affirming the full humanity, dignity and equality of women, the Gospel certainly gives us plenty to think about.

Jesus spoke publicly with women, learned from women, welcomed women as disciples and challenged religious and social structures that diminished them.

From Hierarchy to a Community of Equals

Women priests are not seeking simply to insert women into the existing clerical system.

That would not be enough.

The deeper transformation is a renewed priestly ministry within a community of baptized equals.

In our inclusive Catholic communities, the priest does not stand above the people as the exclusive mediator of divine grace. She/he is a companion on the journey, a facilitator of liturgical rites, a pastoral presence in a community of equals.

We gather in circles.

We share reflections on the Gospel.

We pray Eucharistic prayers together.

We welcome everyone to the table.

LGBTQ+ people, divorced and remarried Catholics, people alienated from institutional religion, seekers and doubters are welcomed as beloved members of the Body of Christ.

This is not merely about changing who may wear a Roman collar.

It is about changing our understanding of Church.

The Photographs Are Becoming History

This is why Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi’s photographs matter so much.

The Festival della Fotografia Italiana describes her work as a long-term project documenting Catholic women priests excommunicated by the Vatican.[^5]

These photographs preserve the faces of women who followed their consciences and their calls despite enormous institutional opposition. 

Someday Catholics may look at these images very differently.

They may ask:

Why did the Church excommunicate women for answering God’s call?

Why did it take so long to recognize women’s spiritual authority?

And why were Catholics told that a loving God could call only men to sacramental ministry?

History has a way of transforming yesterday’s rebels into tomorrow’s prophets.

We Are Not Waiting

I will continue to pray for Pope Leo. I support his stance on justice issues and outreach to the margins specifically migrants.

I will continue to hope that he listens to women, theologians, historians and Catholics throughout the world who long for a Church where gender is no barrier to sacramental ministry.

I would welcome dialogue with him.

But our movement cannot put the Holy Spirit on hold while another commission meets.

Women priests are not waiting for the Church to change.

We are changing the Church now.

Every time an inclusive Catholic community gathers around a Eucharistic table, the Church is changing.

Every time a woman preaches the Gospel, the Church is changing.

Every time someone who has felt rejected by religion discovers that there is a place for them at the table, the Church is changing.

Every time a woman answers God’s call despite being told that her gender makes that call impossible, the Church is changing.

Perhaps that is what Bianchi’s photographs ultimately reveal.

The future Church is not merely something we are waiting for.

In communities of equality, justice, compassion and radical inclusion, it is already being born among us.

And no decree from Rome can stop the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Notes

[^1]: Festival della Fotografia Italiana, Riti e Visioni. Tra spirituale e materiale, 2026. The festival runs June 12–September 6, 2026.

[^2]: Synod on Synodality, Final Document, no. 60. The document affirms that women should not be prevented from exercising leadership roles in the Church and states that discernment concerning women’s access to the diaconal ministry should continue.

[^3]: Second Study Commission on the Female Diaconate, report released by the Vatican in December 2025. The commission stated that current research did not support admission of women to the sacramental diaconate while acknowledging that its judgment was not definitive.

[^4]: Reuters, “Vatican rejects proposal to allow sermons by Catholic women,” June 23, 2026.

[^5]: Festival della Fotografia Italiana, biographical description of Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi, 2026. Bianchi’s Ordination — I Think Jesus Was a Feminist documents the lives of Catholic women priests who challenged the Vatican prohibition against women’s ordination.

Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

703-505-0004

sofiabmm.bmm@gmail.com

AI Transparency Note

This article reflects the perspective, theology, ministry experience and editorial direction of Bridget Mary Meehan. ChatGPT (OpenAI) was used as a writing and research assistant to help organize, edit and document the article. Final responsibility for the ideas, theological interpretation and published text belongs to the author.

From artist : Robert Klonoski

Dear Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan:

…I'm an artist, and so I think it is important to visually relate a story. The story of the Last Supper, which Leonardo DaVinci painted as a Renaissance-era board meeting of the male followers of Christ, is a misrepresentation. We know that Mary, Christ's mother, Mary Magdeline, Mary Clopas, and Mary Salome were all in Jerusalem at the time of the Last Supper. Passover is a family celebration to which friends might also be in attendance. So, I repainted the Last Supper to include both.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is on the left in the foreground and she is glancing at a person in the right foreground, possibly Joseph, at the moment she hears talk of betrayal and realizes that her son may die soon.