By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, June 14, 2022: Catholics in India have applauded Pope Francis for nominating three women to the Vatican office that vets bishop appointments.
“Pope Francis is no doubt a visionary, who is treading gently to create space for women to become actively engaged in the life and mission of the Church,” Presentation Sister Dorothy Fernandes, national convener of the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, told Matters India July 14, a day after Pope named the women to the Dicastery for Bishops.
The Vatican office oversees the work of most of the Church’s 5,300 bishops, who run dioceses around the world.
The new members are Sister Raffaella Petrini, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist who already holds a high-ranking Vatican position as the secretary general of the Vatican City State, which runs the Vatican Museums and other administrative parts of the territory.
Also named was Sister Yvonne Reungoat, former superior general of the Daughters of Mary the Helper, also known as the Salesian Sisters. The lay woman is Maria Lia Zervino, president of a Catholic women’s umbrella group, the World Union of Female Catholic Organizations (WUCWO).
Sister Fernandes says the Pope is following Jesus, who was sensitive to women entrusted the Church to them beginning with Mother Mary. The Pope “is breaking new paths much to the opposition from within. Synodality is being unfolded, by inclusiveness by enabling women to take their rightful place,” she says.
Kochurani Abraham, a feminist theologian, says by naming the three women Pope Francis is apparently breaking the gendered glass ceiling of the Catholic Church.
Capuchin Father Suresh Mathew, editor of the Indian Currents weekly, sees these appointments as the sign of the Pope “going all out with his sweeping changes in the Church.”
Sister Manju Devarapalli, a Carmelite Missionaries nun who is the secretary of the National Dalit Christian Watch, says she is “extremely glad at the farsightedness of Pope Francis that goes back to that of Christ in the Gospels.”
She points out that after becoming the Pope, Francis has been surprising not just the Catholic Church but the whole world with his visionary leadership.
Chhotebhai, national convener of the Indian Christian Forum, too says the Pope “is pushing ahead steadily till hopefully women can be ordained ministers. He began with innocuous appointments like lectors and acolytes. That was the beginning not the end.”
The lay leader terms it as “good that he has appointed an elected laywoman.”
At the same time, chhotebhai points out that the Pope “faces stiff opposition from the deeply entrenched conservative lobby in the United States and France, plus the shadow of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. So he has to tread cautiously.”
Virginia Saldanha, former executive secretary of bishops’ conferences in India and Asia, appreciates Pope Francis’ efforts to bring in women into a space that was formerly men only.
At the same time, she says the new appointments “will remain mere tokenism until women are included fully and equally.” The new appointees, Saldanha points out, are European or of European descent.
According to her, Zervino’s WUCWO does not represent lay women in the world. The organization “is known to be a very conservative Catholic women’s network, supported by the Vatican. In fact when progressive voices began to be raised in WUCWO, they were quickly marginalized and the Vatican took control of the organization,” recalls, Saldanha, who is also a theologian.
She fears that none of the new appointees will question the decision of the male members in the dicastery, but probably just go along with what the bishops say. “Catholic means universal and the Catholic Church has to demonstrate that it is universal. Women want full dignity and equality in the Church, where all voices are heard – that is true synodality,” she asserts.
Sister Fernandes wants the Pope’s gesture to trickle down to dioceses where women are often seen performing servitude roles. “The Church in Asia and more so in India has a long way to go. The clericalism that exists in the Church is gradually keeping people away from actively engaging with Church activities. The time has come to appoint women as chairpersons of women, family, and laity commissions,” the progressive nun asserts.
Fernandes also sees an urgent need for renewal of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and the conference of the Latin bishops in India.
“Women both lay and religious need to be trained and invited for such discourses. What Pope Francis is inviting us to is a challenge; it’s making a shift in our paradigm; it’s a reflection of how we use power. It’s a call to shedding the paraphernalia in our celebrations and getting to the heart of the matter,” Sister Fernandes explains.
She regrets that the hope of many progressive women in the Church is excluded because their reflections and suggestions come from a lived experience of being engaged at a larger level in society. “Such women are often labeled as aggressive,” she adds.
Sister Fernandes also says bishops often appoint women who are docile to them and who do not offer their point of view.
“We are living in very exciting times, renewal of the Church is in progress, but who will lead the way? Can there be appointments of women, Religious Brothers in the CBCI. We do not need decorative roles. We need to keep the trend being set by Pope Francis, Is it asking for too much?” she asks.
Father Mathew says the Pope in 2018 had disclosed that he had short-listed a woman to head a Vatican economic department but she could not take the job for personal reasons. Later, the Pope named a woman to the number two position in the governorship of Vatican City, making Sister Petrini the highest-ranking woman in the world’s smallest state.
Last year, he named Italian nun Sister Alessandra Smerilli to the interim position of secretary of the Vatican’s development office, which deals with justice and peace issues. There were a few more such sweeping changes and appointments in the last couple of years in the Roman Curia,” Father Mathew explains.
Now the bigger question is how far the intense churning taking place in the Vatican, initiated by the Pope, would get reflected practically in the Indian context.
How far the Pope’s focus on laity and women would find acceptance at all levels of the Church hierarchy in India? These are evocative questions, the answers for which would have a major impact for the Church in India in the days ahead.
Sister Devarapalli too wants the Pope to maintain the Church’s universality by including Asians in the selection of women. “The appointment of bishops is from all over the world and the Europeans wouldn’t be able to discern the vast majority of the candidates,” she asserts.
Abraham says although the Pope has made “significant breakthrough” in giving the three women a say in identifying future bishops, will it in any way change the way of being the Church today.
“Are these appointments merely an expression of the charismatic vision of Pope Francis and disappear once his term of leadership is over? Or, would they bring about the much needed structural changes which can pave the way for greater gender equality in the Church? Only time can say,” she asks.