#GAReads | Pope Francis put a woman in a top Vatican role. It shows how little power Catholic women hold.

photo credit: Jon Tyson, via Unsplash

Pope Francis put a woman in a top Vatican role. It shows how little power Catholic women hold.”:

Recently, the Catholic Church took two small steps for womankind: This month, Pope Francis named the first woman to a managerial position in the Vatican’s most important office, the Secretariat of State. And in October, the world’s bishops suggested that Francis reconvene a commission he had created, at the urging of nuns, to study the ordination of women as permanent deacons — church ministers who are able to perform some of the duties of priests, but not to say Mass or hear confessions.

Yet these reforms only make clear how little power women hold in the church, where they constitute about half of Catholicism’s 1.2 billion adherents. Not only are women barred from ordination to the priesthood, they are not even allowed to vote at Vatican synods, convened to advise the pope about challenges facing the church.

Read Celia Viggo Wexler’s full article at NBC News’ THINK here…