A reader recently asked us about women throughout Catholic history and why they never achieved equality in the Church—or whether, perhaps, they have.
This is a deep question to address and will likely ruffle some feathers. To honestly break this topic down, we have to look at several different topics within the Catholic Church. In all honesty, women’s place in the Church developed from several different forces: ancient social structures, theological interpretation, canon law, and the gradual consolidation of authority within the clergy. But we can’t say women’s place in Catholicism hasn’t evolved over the centuries. It has. The more interesting question is whether evolution has ever resulted in equality.
Let’s start with the early Church. I’ve spent a lot of hours in classes and reading various materials that teach how complex the Early Church was, especially when it came to women. Women are very prominent in the New Testament.
The one most notable example is Mary Magdalene, who encountered the risen Jesus and then announced it to the disciples. (John 20:1-18).
Priscilla, often recognized as an important female teacher in the early Church, helped instruct Apollos, a well-educated preacher. But if he was well educated, why did Priscilla need to teach him? Apollos, despite being well-educated, lacked complete understanding of Christian doctrine. He was knowledgeable in the Scriptures but only familiar with the baptism of John, which did not encompass the full significance of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. (Acts 18:24-26).
Paul introduces Phoebe as a diakonos of the church at Cenchreae (Romans 16:1). That’s significant. The Greek word can mean servant, minister, or deacon, and exactly what Phoebe’s title tells us about women’s formal ministry in the earliest Church remains debated.
But the debate itself tells us something: women were not merely sitting silently on the sidelines of early Christianity.
Early Christianity developed within Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures where public authority was predominantly male. As Christianity became increasingly institutionalized, its leadership structures developed within those same cultural worlds.
How much of what eventually became “tradition” came from theology—and how much came from the social world in which the theology developed?
That’s not an accusation disguised as a question. It’s a question Christianity has to be willing to examine honestly.
Over the centuries, ecclesiastical authority became more and more linked to ordination. If bishops and priests possess the authority to govern, teach officially, administer most sacraments, and occupy the highest offices, then women are structurally excluded from many of the positions carrying the greatest institutional authority.
Modern Catholic teaching explicitly affirms the equal dignity of women and men. However, the Church’s position is that equality in dignity does not require identical ecclesial roles.
Regarding priestly ordination specifically, the Catholic argument has centered on Christ choosing male apostles, the Church’s understanding of the priest acting in persona Christi, and the claim that the Church does not possess authority to ordain women. Critics argue that this continues to produce structural inequality. The Catholic Church itself explicitly rejects the proposition that reserving priestly ordination to men makes women inferior. In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, John Paul II specifically argued that women’s non-admission to priesthood cannot be understood as lesser dignity or discrimination, and stated that the Church lacks authority to ordain women.
Here’s some fascinating history. Abbesses had extraordinary influence in the medieval period. These women governed enormous religious communities, controlled property, oversaw schools and hospitals, corresponded with rulers and popes, and exercised authority over men and women within their territories.
Women such as Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, and Teresa of Ávila became major theological and spiritual voices despite being excluded from ordained ministry.
My favorite was Catherine of Siena. She admonished popes and clergy without possessing clerical office herself. Now, that’s power.
The Church eventually canonized her and later declared her a Doctor of the Church.
What a paradox… A woman could become a saint, mystic, theologian, reformer, founder, counselor to popes, and eventually Doctor of the Church—but never the parish priest celebrating Mass.
Catholic history therefore presents us with something far more complicated than a Church in which women simply had no power. Women could possess enormous spiritual, intellectual, social, and sometimes even political influence.
What they could not possess was ordained sacramental authority.
And over time, that distinction mattered enormously.
Here’s where Canon Law comes into play.
Canon 1024 is remarkably direct: “A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly.”
There are, however, ministries that were historically restricted to men but are now formally open to women. In 2021, Pope Francis changed the wording of Canon 230 §1, which had previously reserved the instituted ministries of lector and acolyte to lay men. Women had already been performing these functions in Catholic parishes for decades; the change formally opened the instituted ministries themselves to women.
That same year, Francis established the instituted ministry of catechist, which is also open to women.
But none of these changes opened Holy Orders to women.
Women could now be formally instituted as lectors, acolytes, and catechists. They still could not be ordained deacons, priests, or bishops.
The doors opened but the ceiling remained.
Lector | Acolyte | Catechist
Instituted ministries open to women
HOLY ORDERS → STOP
Deacon → Priest → Bishop → Pope
So, have women finally achieved equality in the Catholic Church?
That depends entirely on what we mean by equality.
- If equality means equal human dignity before God, Catholic teaching answers emphatically yes.
- If equality means that women can exercise meaningful ministry, teach theology, lead institutions, counsel popes, become saints and Doctors of the Church, the answer is also yes.
- But if equality means having the same access as men to the sacramental offices from which the Church’s hierarchy is constructed, the answer remains no.
The Church’s response is that these realities aren’t contradictory because equality of dignity does not require sameness of function.
At what point does a difference in function become a difference in power?
Catherine of Siena could tell a pope when she thought he was wrong.
She just could never become one.