Vatican representative denounces "gender injustice" in Church

Michael Weninger. A photo: novenanews.com

On October 13, Viennese priest Michael Weninger, a staff member of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, in his interview with the Austrian Catholic news agency “Kathpress” denounced "gender injustice" in the Church, reports “Novena News”.

According to him, the church "patriarchy" denigrates women for "supposedly" religious reasons and "always has social consequences", contributing to the disparagement of women in wider society.

He believes that the marginalization of women in the Church paves the way for the instrumentalisation of women in phenomena as grave as modern slavery and human trafficking.

Weninger criticized the image of a woman in the Roman Catholic Church and said that "in that regard, the institution has a lot of catching up to do, particularly in terms of encouraging the potential of religious sisters".

Canon law, continued the Vatican official, treats religious women “like laypeople”, when in fact through their “pious way of life and excellent education, religious women should actually take on leading roles in the Church”.

“We must move away from a male-centred clerical Church,” but a “clericalised women's Church” is also no path to true gender justice, the Vatican official resumed.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to the hierarch of the RCC from Spain, "women priests" can resolve the crisis of the shortage of the clergy.

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