Women's Ordination Worldwide Responds to Death of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI

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Women's Ordination Worldwide responds to death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI


PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2022

Today, Women’s Ordination Worldwide marks the death of Joseph Ratzinger, an academic who understood church history better than most and began his clerical life as a liberal theologian knowing  full well that women were equal founding leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. However, as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office for decades, and later as pope, Benedict XVI caused immense harm through his fixation on the ‘crimes’ of  Catholics seeking equality, inclusion and justice.


We lament the fact that Pope Benedict died without apologizing for silencing his fellow theologians and women's ordination campaigners who dared to question his increasingly extreme positions on women’s ordained ministry. In particular, we call to mind Pope Benedict’s 2010 decision to classify the “attempted ordination of a woman” as a grave crime, on a par with the sexual abuse of a child, but with the punishment of automatic excommunication for women.


We extend our sympathy and solidarity to the survivors of abuse by clergy and note that Pope Benedict’s tolerance for the crimes of male priests was in sharp contrast to his determination to punish those who challenged his absolute intolerance for the equality of women.


We pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Emeritus Benedict and for the healing of divisions that his intransigent theology deepened within the church.
 

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Women’s Ordination Worldwide Media Contacts:

Women's Ordination Worldwide (WOW): Founded in 1996, WOW is an international network of groups whose current mission is the inclusion of Roman Catholic women in all ordained ministries. Founded on the principle of equality, WOW opposes all discrimination. 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus'. (Galatians 3:28)

WOW currently includes representatives from Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Poland, South Africa, and the United States.