Pope Francis’s positions on the role of women in the Church show that he has taken significant symbolic steps toward increasing women’s presence in Church structures during his leadership, while simultaneously avoiding fundamental structural changes in this area.
Pope Francis has appointed women to some of the highest positions ever held in the Vatican, including Sister Raffaella Petrini as the first woman to serve as Deputy Governor of the Vatican City State and Sister Simona Brambilla as the first woman to head a Vatican dicastery. He also granted women the right to vote in synods for the first time and placed several women on the team responsible for appointing bishops—a key role in selecting Church leaders.
However, these advancements come as women still make up only 24% of Vatican employees, with even fewer in top leadership roles. Critics argue that the women appointed by the Pope are often chosen for their unquestioning obedience rather than their reformist views.
Despite these symbolic strides, Pope Francis has strongly resisted allowing women access to ordained ministry. He has explicitly upheld the ban on women becoming priests or deacons, citing Petrine principles to justify his stance—even though historical evidence shows women served as deacons in early Christianity. After forming two commissions to study the possibility of female deacons, the Pope failed to reach a clear conclusion, leaving the matter to endless debate. This hesitation has frustrated many faithful women who feel their divine calling to serve is being ignored.
Pope Francis has repeatedly faced criticism for controversial statements about femininity. During a recent speech at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, he described women as “receptive, life-giving, and symbols of care and surrender,” sparking backlash from the university, which called his remarks “conservative, deterministic, and reductive.” In response to criticism, the Pope argued that the Church is feminine and that “being a woman is more important than being a man,” but these explanations failed to convince detractors. Previously, he had also referred to women as “the strawberry on the cake,” drawing widespread condemnation.
One of the darker aspects of Pope Francis’s record is his handling of cases where clergy sexually abused nuns. While he became the first pope to publicly acknowledge that priests have abused nuns, he has taken little concrete action to address the issue. The case of Marko Rupnik, a priest accused of sexually abusing at least nine women, highlights this failure. Although Rupnik was expelled from the Jesuit order in 2023, he remains a priest, leaving his victims feeling that justice has not been served. Gloria Branciani, one of Rupnik’s victims who resigned from religious life after years of abuse, said, “Words are all fine and good, but we need practical substance.”
While Pope Francis has taken more steps than his predecessors to include women in the Church, these reforms remain superficial and insufficient. The core power structures of the Catholic Church—priests, cardinals, and the Pope himself—remain entirely male-dominated.
As one women’s rights advocate in the Church put it: “This tension between a priest who preaches Gospel values and a Pope who doesn’t want to be transformed by women’s witness is difficult for women.” It seems Pope Francis’s legacy on women will be a mix of symbolic progress and structural resistance, leaving the burden of real change to his successors.
edition