In “François, mon pape”, his text appeared in the Opinion section of the To have to of July 22, François Cornellier describes a “cool, smiling and modest” Pope Francis. It is his pope, he writes, the one who will have reconciled him the most with the institution of the Roman Catholic Church for the relevance of his interventions and for his closeness to the people.
However, from my point of view as a feminist analyst of religions, Pope Francis does not seem cool at all. Since the beginning of his pontificate, he has rather imposed himself as a severe and authoritarian anti-feminist. He reiterated the “theology of women” of his predecessors, built in the mid-1980s, in response to feminism. Pope Francis maintains that the woman (in the singular) is the other of the man. This would be an immutable and universal truth, valid for all times and for all cultures, willed by God.
Here is the vision of Pope Francis in a few words: God would have created woman to help man. The principle of help would be inscribed in the unchangeable nature of woman. She would possess her own characteristics, such as a gift for faith and for the education of faith, and a specific ability to listen to spread love and peace.
In the institution of the Roman Catholic Church, the difference in characteristics between women and men leads to the exclusion of women from the priesthood. Women cannot represent the man Jesus. This leads at the same time to the exclusion of women from decision-making positions.
A patriarchal political and theological system
With regard to sexuality, Pope Francis prohibits contraception, except natural, and he prohibits abortion, without exception, for the reason that God intervenes by direct action at the moment of the conception of a human. The latter would be a being located at the top of the work of divine creation since he possesses reason.
The Vatican of Pope Francis enacts obligatory heterosexuality and sexual abstinence for priests, and allows the sexual act only within marriage. It should also be noted that the Catholic Church is the only religious denomination to advocate the indissolubility of marriage.
As a result, how can women live? It remains for them to act as wives in the service of procreation (neither contraception nor abortion) and in the service of others (according to their nature of educator and support for others).
Pope Francis leads the Vatican, the last Western state to authoritarianly push forward an explicit patriarchal political and theological system, expressed in contemporary words. Women have no voice in the matter. The consequences of the imposed vision are harmful for millions of women around the world.
This policy in no way corresponds to the lineage of the Jesus movement and arouses indignation. It must change and it can change. Many and many Catholics, all over the world, do not adhere to the patriarchal system imposed by Pope Francis and strongly criticize it, from within. People of all stripes join in this crucial critique for women’s lives and for gender justice.
The patriarchal posture of Pope Francis finds meeting points with his other interventions. Francis stands out as a leader who possesses a knowledge of the immutable and universal truth, willed by God.
He lives in a hierarchical world. He stands above other clerics and lay people. The control of the group of women is for him a guarantor of the hierarchies that he establishes and of the control of his power over the other groups.
A skilled communicator
We are delighted that Pope Francis is traveling to Canada and Quebec to apologize to Indigenous peoples, a request from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015). But we also know that the Vatican, in the present state of the organization of its power, remains of the colonial type. When Francis invites clerics to humility and sets an example of it, as Louis Cornellier points out, and when he invites people to give alms to the poor, he does so from the perspective of the strongest who must help the most. weak, and not according to a logic of circle of life where non-persons work together for their own liberation.
Pope Francis is a skilled communicator who manages to camouflage his authoritarianism. We love to love Pope Francis. There are now few spiritual leaders and where we have become accustomed to the folklore of the Vatican, to the robes of the clerics and to the long white robe of the Pope.
I call for remaining critical of the Vatican leader’s anti-woman control and patriarchal posture, which causes so much harm to women, gender relations and healthy sexuality.
This pope has never been good news for women and for criticism of the hierarchies. Long live a future pope who has the courage to come down from the patriarchal throne!