Pope Francis said on Tuesday he believes the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women becoming priests is forever and will never be changed, in some of his most definitive remarks on the issue. A Swedish woman reporter, aboard the plane taking the Pope from Sweden to Rome, noted that the head of the Lutheran Church in Sweden who welcomed him was a woman, and then asked if he thought the Catholic Church could allow women to be ordained as ministers in coming decades.
“St. Pope John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands, this stands,” Pope Francis said.
The Pope was referring a 1994 document by Pope John Paul that closed the door on a female priesthood, calling it the “last clear word”. The Vatican says this teaching is an infallible part of Catholic tradition.
The reporter then pressed the Pope, asking: “But forever, forever? Never, never? Pope Francis responded: “If we read carefully the declaration by St. John Paul II, it is going in that direction.”
Pope Francis has previously said that the door to women’s ordination is closed, but proponents of a female priesthood are hoping that a future Pope might overturn the decision, particularly because of the shortage of priests around the world.
The Catholic Church teaches that women cannot be ordained priests because Jesus willingly chose only men as his apostles. Those calling for women priests say he was only following the norms of his time.
In August, Pope Francis set up a commission to study the role of women deacons in early Christianity, raising hopes among equality campaigners that women could one day have a greater say in the 1.2 billion-member Church.
Deacons, like priests, are ordained ministers and must be men. They cannot celebrate Mass, the Catholic Church’s central rite, but they are allowed to preach and teach in the name of the Church, and to baptise and conduct wake and funeral services.
The Church barred women from becoming deacons centuries ago.
Scholars debate the precise role of women deacons in the early Church. Some say they were ordained to minister only to other women, for instance in baptismal immersion rites. Others believe they were on a par with male deacons.
