Pope promoting women

Pope Francis is making sure that lay men and women are enabled to work in areas of the Vatican that were once the preserve of religious and clerics only. It’s part of his synodal process and reform of the Vatican, as Dr Gerry Whelan SJ explains to Pat Coyle of Irish Jesuit Communications in this second part of her extended interview with him in August 2022.

The Pope has also confirmed that he wants to give women more top-level positions in the Vatican and has time he would name women to a previously all-male Vatican committee that helps him select the world’s bishops.

In this interview, Gerry Whelan outlines the important work of two women in particular appointed by Pope Francis – Italian Sister Raphael Petrinii and Maria Lia Servina.

And he tells the story of a revealing trip to the Vatican supermarket!

Gerry Whelan SJ is Chair of the Department of Fundamental Theology in the Jesuit Gregorian University in Rome.