https://www.cbsnews.com/video/pope-francis-interview-60-minutes-video-2024-05-19/
I think part of the issue is that Pope Francis has never with any Roman Catholic Women Priests or heard our stories of call or inclusive ministries. His vision is a church for everyone which has been our 20 year plus mission on the margins. But a wider tent cannot happen without women in ordained ministries. Our movement is needed more than ever to make that happen and grow in the emerging church that we are called to lead!
I was touched by Pope Francis's warmth and pastoral response to Norah O'Donnell throughout the Sixty Minutes interview.
On hot button issues such as surrogacy, Pope Francis started his response by reiterating Church's opposition. Then he acknowleged that he knew that Norah felt deeply for the suffering of these couples. He went on to give a pastoral response saying something to the effect that while it is important to keep in mind the moral principles involved, couples with no other real option might make this choice. On the issue of blessing gay unions, Pope Francis, made a major point that this was a spiritual blessing for the couples, not a change in Church teaching that would allow gay marriage. By this action, he has affirmed LGBTQ+ persons as beloved people to be blessed and treated as equal members of the Church. It is a step in the right direction, but the medieval teaching forbidding gay unions and marriage must change in order to move toward full equality and oneness in Christ.
In response to women deacons, he spent time affirming the important role that women played in the Catholic faith and their importance in Jesus' life and ministry, but clearly made no wiggle room for women priests or even women deacons. He did not even allude to the fact that this topic is supposed to be under serious study after it was raised in the Synod in 2023 in Rome.
I was disappointed by his response but I also felt that if he actually had a conversation with any of our close to 300 women deacons, priests and bishops, or the members of our emerging church faith communities, he might have understood that our work is widening the tent and creating a more inclusive church where all are welcome to receive and celebrate sacraments. It is time for Francis to engage in a spirit-filled conversation with women in ordained ministries in our Roman Catholic Women Priests International Movement.
Maybe-just maybe, if we had a sit-down with Pope Francis, while we'd disagree on the teaching that prohibits women's ordination, there is much we have in common- our love for the people of God especially those who are suffering in our world and on the periphery of society. We are on the same page on many of the topics he covered because social justice is integral to the Gospel of Jesus and all justice issues are connected including the topics he mentioned in his interview: peace, migrants, children, the climate...
Pope Francis's vision and our vision is the same: the Church must be a welcoming place, a spiritual home for everyone- "todos, todos, todos!" But , a Church for everyone must include women in all ministries including ordained sacramental ministry. There are close to 300 in our Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement. We have been serving God's people in the emerging Church for 20 years!
I pray that Pope Francis will invite us to share our stories of call and ministry so that we too will be included in "todos, todos!" Francis could take a first step by lifting excommunication against women priests and our supporters! May it be so as we journey together in loving oneness in Christ!
Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP
sofiabmm.bmm@gmail.com
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/257757/pope-francis-on-female-deacons-no
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