Will the Catholic Church be able to offer women facts and not just beautiful words?

Text by Meghan J. Clark, published in US Catholic (United States) on 15 October 2025. Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata Project.

When George Balanchine, the famous choreographer who made The Nutcracker a Christmas classic, stated that "ballet is woman", he seemed to pay homage to ballerinas. On the surface, the world of dance seems to revolve around women: most dancers are women, most students in dance schools are girls, and most audiences are female.

Yet, behind the curtain, power remains firmly in the hands of men. According to the Data Dance Project, although women held 61% of dance school directors in 2025, 70% of artistic directors at major companies were men. As in the Catholic Church, here too gender stereotypes and inequalities remain deeply rooted.

As a theologian who spent her childhood at the bar, i can't help but see the parallel. When in the church they Say "the church is woman", the words of the choreographer balanchine come To Mind. in both cases the metaphor is seductive, but hides a more uncomfortable truth: it exalts female beauty, dedication and sacrifice, but turns the gaze away from the real issues of equality and inclusion.

As in ballet, also in the Catholic church women are visible protagonists but excluded from roles of power. Lay people are the majority of faithful active in parishes and religious women have an irreplaceable role, but women continue to be excluded from decision-making and even consultative roles.

Throughout the synod process, the exclusion and marginalization of women in the church emerged as one of the most recurring concerns. The North American position paper spoke of a “constant call” to create more space for female presence and leadership in church life.

Everyone recognized the problem: it is regrettable that women still experience marginalization, and this must be addressed. However, in an evident contradiction, paragraph 60 of the final document of the Synod - the one dedicated to the role and status of women - was the one that received the greatest number of votes against.

We all agree that women belong in the church, but we don't always know "where" To place Them. the discussion does not only concern the diaconate or ordination: it touches something deeper, the very meaning of vocation, belonging and participation in ecclesial life.

Entering the implementation phase of the Synod on synodality, it is clear that the Catholic Church recognizes the need to give more space to lay women. But what this means, concretely, remains uncertain. Without a shared vision and concrete actions, everything risks stopping and ancient stereotypes about women remain intact.

Pope Francis and the Synod's core document, For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission, both called for removing obstacles to female leadership, especially in roles already permitted by canon law.

In 2021, Francis amended the code to allow women to be established as readers and acolytes, and established the lay ministry of catechists. He also appointed a growing number of women to roles of responsibility in the Roman curia.

In 2023, the pope appointed three women — including a lay woman — as members of the Dicastery for Bishops, the office that identifies and proposes new bishops. Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, who headed the dicastery, recognized the value of their contributions, saying they offered distinct perspectives and “contributed significantly to discernment.”

When he Became Pope Leo xIV, one of his first appointments was that of Sister Tiziana merletti as secretary Of the dicastery For institutes of consecrated life and Societies of apostolic life. Significantly, the office that oversees the male and female orders now has a female prefect, a female secretary and one of two female undersecretaries. however, The inclusion of lay women in ecclesial leadership roles still remains marginal.

In recent years, many of us have not seen our dioceses or parishes follow Pope Francis' example in expanding female leadership. Whose voices, then, are really heard in community discernment processes?

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has not yet provided guidelines or encouragement to dioceses to entrust new ministries to lay people, as expected.

The roles of reader, acolyte and catechist are not mere administrative functions: they represent real spaces of ministerial and liturgical participation. In December 2024, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, became the first U.S. bishop to officially establish three lay women as acolytes.

Her gesture was a concrete and public signal of openness to new avenues of female leadership in her diocese, and a model of how synod priorities can be translated into practice at the local level.

Catholic theology has long affirmed the equal dignity of men and women. however, in Practice, theological reflection has often taken male experience as a universal measure of humanity. as In ballet, where the female figure is idealized through the male gaze, also in theology the woman is reduced to motherhood and the procreative function, while man is considered representative of the human race.

As the theologian Julie Rubio observed when criticizing Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship), "women, not men, are asked to recognize themselves in the document... Brotherhood is universal, sisterhood is not."

(...)

The Synod reminds us of a basic truth: Baptism is the common identity of the faithful, women and men. To fully live this baptismal identity, the Catholic Church must place female intuitions, experiences and images at the center as authentic expressions of resemblance to God.

Paragraph 60 of the synod document invites precisely this change, asking for "greater attention to the language and images used in preaching, teaching, catechesis and the drafting of official documents of the Church", and a broader valorisation "of the contributions of female saints, theologians and mystics".

The Synod recalls that "by virtue of Baptism, women and men have equal dignity", but women still encounter obstacles to the full recognition of their charisms.

Much of the difficulty arises from a narrow idea of ​​vocation, often limited to the priesthood or religious life, which ends up excluding lay men and women, and in particular single people, who rarely recognize themselves in a vocational "state of life". If, however, the vocation was understood as a path of discipleship, a common path of faith and love, it would become more inclusive and truly evangelical.

In a homily at the Tomb of Saint Paul, Pope Leo And he recalled the words of Pope Benedict XVI to young people: "At the center of every vocation there is a simple truth: God loves us."

Focusing on the vocation of discipleship, the Synod reminds us that “Baptism is the foundation of the Christian life.”

This vocation does not arise from roles or gender, but from the common identity of the baptized. If the church is able to reflect sincerely on how to live this shared discipleship, perhaps lay women will no longer be treated as objects of ecclesial discourse, but welcomed as active subjects, fully participating in the journey.

United in Baptism and called to follow, men and women can walk together in synodality. Only then, perhaps, can we stop idealizing women by limiting their role, and remember that, as in a well-choreographed ballet, the church comes to life when we all move together.

*Meghan J. Clark is professor of theology at St. John's University in New York and author of The Vision of Catholic Social Thought: The Virtue of Solidarity and the Praxis of Human Rights (Fortress Press).

Original text: Can the Church Give More Than Lip Service to Women's Leadership?