AP: Nun named to voting position at Vatican praises ‘brave’ pope
AP’s Nicole Winfield’s report on the appointment of Sr. Nathalie Becquart to the Synod of Bishops, and quotes WOC Executive Director, Kate McElwee:
ROME (AP) — A French nun who has become the first woman to hold a voting position at the Vatican said Wednesday that her appointment is evidence the “patriarchal mindset is changing” as more and more women assume high-level decision-making responsibilities in the Catholic hierarchy.
Sister Nathalie Becquart said during a news conference that her appointment as an undersecretary in the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops office was a “brave signal and prophetic decision” by Pope Francis, who has repeatedly stressed the need for women to have a greater say in church governance.
…
As a result, Becquart’s appointment has been met with praise but also some bitterness that in 2021 it’s actually newsworthy that a lone woman might be able to cast a ballot alongside hundreds of male bishops about the future life of the Catholic Church.
“Could there be a more stark example of the unequal treatment of men and women in the church (than) that one undersecretary gets made a bishop, while for the other, it is an impossibility?” asked Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, which advocates for women priests.