They believe that the cardinals must be brave enough to properly tackle the question of women's inclusion, as it has not been done so far, even by Pope Francis
Campaigners in Rome have demanded that women be allowed to seek ordination, as they were excluded from the conclave to elect a new pope and the Church's entire global priesthood. The activists released pink smoke from flares and demanded that women be allowed to seek ordination. They believe that the cardinals must be brave enough to properly tackle the question of women's inclusion, as it has not been done so far, even by Pope Francis.
Duignan, of the Wijngaards Institute in Cambridge, was briefly detained in 2011 after she attempted to enter the Vatican to deliver a petition in support of a priest backing the activists' cause. If the activists had taken their protest to the Vatican, they believe a similar fate would have awaited them.
In the global church, women have begun to take some senior lay roles, a process that accelerated a little under Pope Francis's papacy. However, even those who have studied theology and church ministry are excluded from the priesthood, and only priests hold the most senior leadership roles. The campaigners say that women took equal roles in worship in the early Church, before medieval reforms, and that "the men who are going into the Sistine Chapel this afternoon know that, and they don't want everyone else to know that."
Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference campaign group, described this as an injustice and a "crisis" for the church. She sent up pink smoke as their hope that the Church may someday welcome women as equals. French activist Gabrielle Fidelin called it "a sin and a scandal" that women are kept out of the priesthood and the conclave.
Despite the once taboo issue being given an airing in the Synod, which has included female members under Francis, only one of the 133 cardinal electors to be sequestered in conclave has taken a positive stance on women's ordination. In October last year, a report was issued after Francis approved a working party to look into the idea of allowing women to become deacons, acknowledging that the question of women's access to diaconal ministry remains open but concluding that it was too soon to make a decision.
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