During a Sept. 27 visit to one of the Catholic Church’s most storied universities, Pope Francis heard pleas for the church to reconsider its stance against the ordination of women, become more welcoming to LGBTQ people and have a deeper reckoning with its history of clergy abuse and cover-up.
“Why do we tolerate this considerable gap between men and women in a church that is so often carried on the shoulders of women?” asked Luc Sels, rector of the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Lueven). “Would the church not be a warmer community if there was a prominent place for women, including in the priesthood?”
Sels’ candid remarks — in the presence of the pope and on a campus of a leading Catholic research university — came during a visit by Francis to celebrate the 600th anniversary of Leuven’s founding, which will be in 2025.
While the rector’s challenge was not as direct as that of Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane’s historic 1979 demand to Pope John Paul II that women be “included in all the ministries of our church,” it marked a rare occasion where the head of the Catholic Church was directly confronted over doctrine inside one of its own institutions.
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With thanks to the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and Christopher White, where this article originally appeared.
