Tag: Women Religious

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Vatican statistics show decline in clergy, religious women

— The number of seminarians, priests, and men and women in religious orders declined worldwide in 2021


Pope Francis meets with priests during the weekly general audience on March 23, 2022, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican.

By Carol Glatz

The number of Catholics and permanent deacons in the world rose in 2021, while the number of seminarians, priests, and men and women in religious orders declined, according to Vatican statistics.

At the end of 2021, the number of Catholics in the world reached 1.378 billion, up 1.3 percent from 1.36 billion Catholics at the end of 2020, according to the Vatican’s Central Office of Church Statistics. By contrast, the world’s population increased by 1.6 percent over the same period.

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published a brief overview of the global numbers March 3.

While Catholics remained about 17.67 percent of the global population, their numbers grew in Africa by about 3.1 percent and in the Americas and Asia by about 1 percent each, said the summary, which was based on numbers reported Dec. 31, 2021.

The Americas have 48 percent of the world’s Catholics and Brazil is the country with the greatest number of Catholics in the world with almost 180 million people.

While the Americas have 48 percent of the world’s Catholics, it only has 29 percent of the world’s priests. Just a little over 20 percent of the world’s Catholics live in Europe, yet 39.3 percent of the world’s priests minister there.

The Vatican reported that 19.3 percent of the world’s Catholics live in Africa and are served by more than 12 percent of the world’s priests; 11 percent of Catholics live in Asia and are served by more than 17 percent of the world’s priests; and just 0.8 percent of the global Catholic population lives in Oceania where 1 percent of the world’s priests live.

The Catholic Church also had 5,340 bishops at the end of 2021, a slight decrease from 5,363 at the end of 2020. Globally, the average is 76 priests per bishop, it added.

The total number of diocesan and religious order priests decreased globally by 0.57 percent to 407,872, the Vatican office said. The specific decreases were 0.32 percent for diocesan priests and 1.1 percent for religious-order priests.

The statistical office noted a “serious” imbalance in the ratio of Catholics per priest in the Americas and Africa. Globally there is one priest for every 3,373 Catholics in the world. But the ratio is one priest for every 5,534 Catholics in the Americas and one priest for every 5,101 Catholics in Africa. There are 1,784 Catholics per priest in Europe, 2,137 Catholics per priest in Asia, and 2,437 Catholics per priest in Oceania.

The number of religious brothers decreased in 2021 to 49,774 — a drop of about 1.6 percent from 50,569 the previous year, the office said. The numbers went down in every region except Africa where it increased by 2.2 percent.

The total number of religious women, it said, was 608,958 at the end of 2021 — a decrease of 1.7 percent from 619,546 at the end of 2020.

The number of permanent deacons — 49,176 — saw a 1.1 percent increase over the previous year, with the majority of them serving in the Americas.

The number of seminarians decreased globally by 1.8 percent to 109,895. About 61 percent of them are seminarians for a diocese and 39 percent of them for a religious order.

The number of seminarians has been declining each year since 2013, the Vatican office said. The only increase by region for 2021 was in Africa with 0.6 percent and the sharpest decline in the number of seminarians was in North America and Europe with a 5.8 percent decrease each in 2021.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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‘A long way to go’

— Catholic women call for wide-ranging church reforms in new international survey

By and

Catholic women across the world are calling for a wide range of reforms to the church, according to the results of our survey of more than 17,000 Catholic women from over 100 countries published this month.

A substantial majority were concerned about the prevalence of abuse, racism, and sexism in church contexts, and many raised issues relating to transparency and accountability in church leadership and governance.

The International Survey of Catholic Women is one of the most extensive surveys of Catholic women ever undertaken, and its findings should inform lasting and genuine change in the Catholic Church.

Why we did this survey

The survey was initiated by Catholic Women Speak in response to the invitation of Pope Francis for the Catholic Church to engage in a process of “synodality” for the 2021-2023 Synod of Bishops. The Synod will examine how the church comes together and is considered to be of great importance to major issues facing the church.

The aim of the survey was to gather feedback on the experiences of Catholic women. It provides insights into the complex realities of Catholic women’s lives, the ways in which they express their faith, and their relationships with the institutional church. We devised and managed the survey along with Professor Tina Beattie from the University of Roehampton, London.

The large number of responses clearly indicates a desire by Catholic women to share their aspirations and frustrations, and to make their views on the situation of women in the Catholic Church known to the Synod.

Respondents identified themselves as women from all walks of life – single, married, divorced, LGBTIQ, and religious. While the findings cannot claim to be representative of all Catholic women, they articulate the diverse hopes and struggles of women in the worldwide church.

The views of Catholic women reflect the cultural and communal contexts within which their faith is experienced and practised. This diversity is rarely represented in church documents or theology, and many women struggle to see the relevance of church teachings to the complex realities of their lives.

Many women ‘conflicted’ with the Catholic Church

The survey found that even when women have considerable struggles with Catholic institutions, nearly 90% said their Catholic identity is important to them. Many continue to practise their faith despite ongoing difficulties with the institutional church.

Several respondents used words like “frustrated”, “hurt”, “angry”, and “conflicted” when describing their relationship with the church.

Most respondents said they would welcome reform in the Catholic Church, especially – but not exclusively – regarding the role and representation of women.

One woman from Australia observed “we walk the line of being valuable members of society but voiceless in many elements of the church”. Another, from Nicaragua said, “stop making women invisible”.

Respondents raised issues related to:

A minority of respondents expressed a preference for church reform based on a pre-Vatican II model of authority, priesthood, and liturgy. Vatican II was an important meeting of all Catholic bishops held in Rome between 1962-1965 who made progressive decisions about the future of the worldwide church.

Abuse remains a central problem

Respondents consistently identified the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of women, children, and other vulnerable people as a central problem for the church.

Some respondents disclosed experiences of abuse and harassment, while others expressed disappointment at the lack of effective action to address the crisis of sexual abuse.

One woman from Canada wrote:

they have a long way to go in dealing with the scandal and cover up. I know this firsthand. I feel as betrayed by the institutional betrayal as I do by my abuser […] This is coming from a committed lifelong Catholic who has never left the church.

Many respondents were deeply concerned about transparency and accountability in church leadership and governance. There was agreement that a less hierarchical and authoritarian model of the church was urgently needed, with greater collaboration and sharing of authority between clergy and laity (lay people).

A substantial majority of respondents identified clericalism as having a negative impact on church life. Clericalism is the idealisation of male clerics and subsequent abuses of power.

A respondent from Panama remarked, “I wish that women had more voice and that we were not abused by clericalism that excludes us and takes away our dignity”.

Most respondents linked their Catholic identity with social justice, and wanted church leaders to address poverty and marginalisation. Several raised the issue of economic justice in church affairs, including the lack of adequate pay for female church workers, both lay and religious.

The challenge for the Synod is to demonstrate that the many concerns raised by respondents in the survey are carefully listened to and addressed.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Pope Names First Women to Office That Helps Select Bishops

The three women will serve five-year terms in the Vatican office that vets candidates, enhancing the role of women in the church’s operations.

A Vatican courtyard. One expert said the appointment of three women to a previously all-male committee would resonate throughout the church.

By Gaia Pianigiani

Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed women for the first time to the office that advises him in the choice of bishops across the globe, a move that bolsters efforts to give women a larger voice in the church’s operations.

The decision to name the three women — two nuns and a laywoman — as members of the Congregation for Bishops will put them in position to influence the selection of the 5,300 bishops who lead dioceses and play a prominent role in the church’s interaction with the faithful all over the world.

“The Pope is saying that the church is choosing bishops together with women,” said Paolo Rodari, a Vatican expert for the Italian daily La Repubblica. “Even in the most male chauvinist niches of the church, his message will resonate.”

The priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church is restricted to men only, based on doctrinal teaching that all of Jesus’ apostles were male. But women’s groups have been pressing for more authority, given that women participate so actively in church life.

The three women who were selected are Sister Raffaella Petrini, the highest-ranking woman in the Vatican City State and the deputy governor of the area; Sister Yvonne Reungoat, the French former superior general of an Italian religious order, the Daughters of Mary the Helper; and a laywoman, Maria Lia Zervino, president of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations.

The office’s members meet a couple of times a month in Rome to evaluate candidates for bishop submitted by Vatican ambassadors and archbishops. It then advises the pope, who has the final word and has the latitude to appoint candidates who have not been assessed by the panel.

The size of the office varies, but the group announced on Wednesday includes 14 people — the three women, along with 11 cardinals, bishops and priests, who will serve five-year terms.

Francis signaled his intention to appoint women to the office in an interview with Reuters earlier this month. “I am open to giving an opportunity,” Francis told Reuters, referring to women. “This way, things are opening up a bit.”

The pope noted in the interview that the new Constitution for the Holy See, which went into effect last month, allows any baptized Catholic to lead most sections of the Vatican’s central administration, indicating that he planned to appoint more women.

He cited the department for Catholic Education and Culture, and the Apostolic Library, now all run by male prelates, as other prominent positions that might soon be held by women.

In recent years, Francis has appointed other women to influential roles that had previously been held only by men, including Sister Alessandra Smerilli, who was named to a deputy position in the Vatican’s development office, which deals with justice and peace issues.

Yet not everyone was convinced that the presence of women on the bishop-selection office would lead to meaningful change.

“These women were chosen because they are in line with the Vatican’s hierarchy,” said Lucetta Scaraffia, a feminist, church historian and founder of Women Church World, the Vatican’s women magazine that exposed the economic exploitation and abuse of nuns, said in a phone interview. “Nothing will change, I think.”

Although women will now be significantly involved at the end of the process of evaluating potential bishops, she expressed concern that the pipeline for identifying and proposing candidates begins at the local level, which is dominated by men.

The process begins with bishops, who identify the priests who are deemed to be suitable. Their names are vetted by Vatican ambassadors, who then forward them to the Rome-based office.

Ms. Scaraffia is a Vatican critic on the role given to Catholic women. She resigned from her editorial post at the magazine, citing an “arid method of the top-down selection, under direct male control, of women who are perceived as being reliable.”

“Things change slowly at the Vatican,” she said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why the Catholic Church vote on women deacons feels personal

Elizabeth Young was professed as a Sister of Mercy in 2010.

by Elizabeth Young

The Australian Catholic Church’s vote last week on the role of women in the church felt personal.

From when I was seven years old, I longed to commit my life in ordained ministry, and expressed this to my Archbishop at age 11. He responded, “There are many other things that women can do in the Church.”

Well, I am now 37, and have sincerely tried. I have been privileged to become a Sister of Mercy, youth ministry co-ordinator, pastoral worker, pastoral associate and chaplain. My whole employed life has been in the church, at the grassroots, on the margins.

However, ordination – which would allow women to serve in the ministry – is our official recognition and authorisation of this as a stable lifelong calling. This would allow us to perform weddings, funerals and baptisms, which have been shown to serve the most valued role for churches in Australian society.

Last week, bishops and representatives of the Australian Catholic Church concluded over four years of consultations in the highest form of church assembly with legislative authority: a Plenary Council.

At a time when the census shows that Catholics have decreased from 22.6 per cent to 20 per cent of the Australian population, the Council was to renew us in following Jesus, to reach out with hope, spirituality, ethics and justice inspired by faith. The 277 members listened to hundreds of thousands of Australians before voting on motions for a final document.

What started well turned into a crisis. On Wednesday, the two motions relating to “Witnessing to the Equal Dignity of Women and Men” did not receive a qualified majority from the bishops, whose votes count. Soon, worldwide news reported that more than 60 members stood up in shock.

The whole Council stalled. At that point I was starting to question my own humanity and the value of my baptism. Others I spoke to were pained, bruised and disillusioned.

One of the most controversial motions, it seems, was the potential ordination of women to the diaconate. Across the Christian world, there has been a revival of permanent deacons, to complement bishops and priests in ordained ministry. Here, women deacons exist in the Anglican and Uniting Church, among others.

Evidence shows that women were ordained as deacons until the 12th century. Strangely, however, we heard no reason why some voted against reinstituting this possibility. Women like me can only imagine why our participation might be unwelcome.

Is it a fear of women, or our “impurity” that prevented us from serving on the sanctuary? Is it the 13th-century legal phrase: “the impediment of sex”? Or is it that there are many available lay ministries and we don’t need to “clericalise women”?

That last one hits hard. What I already do appears very similar to the ministry of a deacon. I am not asking for power, but to better serve people’s spiritual needs, and to open more ministry pathways for future generations of Catholics. Furthermore, I want to acknowledge and appreciate many other callings, including parents, consecrated, priests, educators, evangelists, catechists, administrators and lay ecclesial ministers.

When the entire permanent diaconate flourishes – men and women – everyone should be encouraged and empowered in their own vocations. In ordaining women, bishops would gain ministerial security and oversight, firmly within the tradition of the Church. Compared with less biblical and historical options, this is quite a conservative ministry proposal.

Last Friday at the Council, a redeveloped set of motions finally passed. While parts were toned down, the final document tentatively states that, “should the universal law of the Church be modified to authorise the diaconate for women, the Plenary Council recommends that the Australian Bishops examine how best to implement it in the context of the Church in Australia”.

After an unexpectedly emotional week, I am actually excited. Since the 1960s, four Vatican Commissions have studied the question of women deacons, without conclusion. However, journalist and Vatican expert, Christopher Lamb, says that Pope Francis expects change to happen from the ground up. That is, if a consensus is formed at the grassroots in local church assemblies, only then will he, or a future Pope, move forward.

So I am praying that our voices reach the local and international level. That we model a Church where there is “no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”. (Gal 3:28)

That we serve the needy and challenge the comfortable. And I would like to thank everyone who is sharing this conversation, now and in the future.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Vatican Church reforms: Now, women to have a say in appointment of bishops

Pope Francis revealed that women may have a say in choosing the Catholic Church’s Bishops who are all men. This is a significant step forward in including women in higher decision-making roles.

The current Pontiff has made several other appointments of women to high-ranking administrative posts.

By Dipavali Hazra

Pope Francis has been spearheading some radical reforms in the Vatican Church that have opened up doors for women to play a role in the seat of Catholic power. While women cannot move up in the religious hierarchy in the Catholic Church, they will, for the first time ever, have a say in the appointment of Bishops- who are all men.

Though this has not been officially announced yet, the Pope revealed in an interview with Reuters that: “Two women will be appointed for the first time in the committee to elect bishops in the Congregation for Bishops.”

He did not elaborate on who were the women who could be appointed to this committee that comprises cardinals, bishops and priests nor did he say when the announcement would me made official. However, the presence of women in one of the top decision-making bodies is a significant step forward in the fairly orthodox religious organisation. This image of the Catholic Church is one that Pope Francis has been trying to modify.

His tenure has been marked with more openness toward not only women but also homosexuals. He has previously supported same-sex “civil unions” calling for their right to be in a family. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he did not support same-sex marriage but did back legal protection for those who chose such living arrangements.

Though his previous comments have appeared to flip flop on homosexuality, his more conciliatory approach has divided people, with liberals welcoming his words, conservatives unhappy and analysts observing that real change would come only when legal protections are given in the church doctrine and homosexual behaviour is no longer considered a “sin”.

Also, in the backdrop of the US Supreme Court abortion ruling, the Pope condemned the practice and compared it to “hiring a hit-man to solve a problem”.

Meanwhile, as far as women’s representation is concerned, Pope Francis, during his 9-year tenure, has certainly paved the way for more opportunities in the Vatican.

In March 2022, he had approved a new constitution for the Vatican’s central administration known as the Curia. The new constitution replaced St John Paul II’s founding constitution, which was written in 1988. One of its key reforms was to permit any baptised lay man and woman to head any of the Vatican’s ministries. In a big shift from positions of power being held only by male clergy, the preamble to the new constitution which was adopted on June 5 says, “The pope, bishops and other ordained ministers are not the only evangelizers in the Church.” Another section of the constitution reads: “Any member of the faithful can head a dicastery (Curia department) or organism.”

When he was asked during the Reuters interview about which Vatican departments could be headed by a member of the public as opposed to the clergy he said that such positions could be cleared in the department for Catholic Education and Culture and the Apostolic Library.

Last year Pope Francis had appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini, to the number two position in the Vatican City Governorate which oversees the Vatican offices and residences in the Vatican city state as well as in Rome. Petrini is the first woman to hold the position.

The current Pontiff has made several other appointments of women to high-ranking administrative posts. In January 2020, Francesca di Giovanni was named Undersecretary for the multilateral sector in the Secretariat of State’s Section for Relations with States and International Organizations, another first.

Sister Nathalie Becquart, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, Sister Carmen Ros Nortes are other women who have been appointed to important positions.

Despite the advances made so far, women have traditionally never been ordained and cannot become priests, bishops or popes in the Catholic Church. The Anglican Church, however, has set a precedent by ordaining women Bishops.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!