Holy See
37 women are members of the Women’s Consultation Group of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which was presented today at the Holy See Press Office, on the eve of International Women’s Day, which will be celebrated tomorrow, 8 March. “Today – Card. Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture said in a joking manner – I should have been in Ariccia doing my spiritual exercises but I am here thanks to the gift of ‘bilocation’”. The women members of the Consultation Group, which was officially set up on 23 June 2015, are active in the professional world of journalism, in the third sector, in the Church, and in the entertainment and fashion industries. They are ambassadors, entrepreneurs, nuns, athletes, actresses, doctors, professors, theologians and state leaders. “In my Dicastery – the cardinal said – we did not have any woman in a leadership position, but in this way, according to the Bible, there was no God’s image. As you know, we read in Genesis that God created man in His own image, male and female He created them. This does not mean that God is bisexual or sexed, but rather that a couple’s relationship is fruitful in all respects and generates love, which is why it is the best image of God”.
For Card. Ravasi, the establishment of the Consultation Group is not to be intended “as a response to the accusations that there is no room for women in the Roman Curia”, nor “as a cosmetic element, a symbolic presence, in a predominantly masculine horizon” or as a “pink quota”. The goal was another: “I wanted a female perspective on all the activities of the Dicastery, as it offers indications we would never think of”. The women of the Consultation Group can also propose topics. According to the cardinal, “it is a question of interpretation, perspective, analysis, above all of judgement, as well as of proposals”. Even in the next Plenary of the Pontifical Council, the Women’s Consultation Group will be engaged in the preparations and in the meeting itself, Card. Ravasi recalled, ending with a joke: “The Polish writer Conrad made one of his characters say that it was extremely difficult to be a woman for you constantly have to deal with men. And this is all the more true, I would say, with priests”.
