Addressing the presence of women in the life of the Church today, as well as the ways and degrees of their participation in the tasks of governance, is not simply a question of being in tune with the priorities of the general mentality. On the contrary, it is a question that has been open for some time, which both Pope Francis and the current Synod have wanted to bring to the fore also in the ecclesial context.
What would not be appropriate is to analyze it according to purely human premises, or analogous to those governing the civil order. It would be as reductionist as simply claiming a "substitution" of men for women in the performance of certain tasks. The same would be true if this reflection were limited to access or not to the sacrament of Holy Orders, reserved by Jesus Christ himself to men: it would not help to resolve the questions that the life of the Church raises in the world every day.
It is appropriate to recognize that on more than a few occasions women in the Church have been seen in a short-sighted light, confining their role to a secondary or subsidiary level; this may have happened because of a more or less unconscious way of doing things, or also as an expression of an incomplete or even negatively paternalistic conception. At the same time, it also happens that among some women within the Church, political parameters have taken precedence over ecclesial ones, turning a just request - that of equal consideration of women in terms of responsibility - into an ideologized struggle, in which the request for access to the sacrament of priestly ordination emerges continuously.
In this area, the reflections and experiences of various women who, in different areas of work - the thousand forms of daily life, the understanding of each one's responsibility in the common mission, service in Church institutions, also in the Vatican, the family, teaching, rural initiatives - are interesting in this area, and give an insight into the enormous richness of that "feminine genius" of which St. John Paul II spoke and which is contributed to the Church, day by day, by millions of women all over the world.
The Church cannot be understood without the womanand it cannot be understood without the male. The same complementarity of the two - which show characteristics of the same Creator - is what must guide a relationship of equality and respect that, with continuous work, will be the only way to carry out the mission that has been entrusted to all, men and women.
For this reason, addressing this diversified and precious presence of women in the Church constitutes an ever-present and necessary work, from which fundamental questions emerge for the life of every Catholic, such as the vocation and mission of the laity, the understanding of ministry as service, the inviolable and infinite dignity of every human being, the richness of the diversity of gifts, as well as the need to overcome purely human schemes and structures in order to enter into the mystery of the Church.
