Not wasting any time, progressive demand that the Pope ordains women.

Theologian and nun Martha Zechmeister CJ from El Salvador writes to the new Pope

A Mary Ward sister - yet another Jesuit-inspired order detached from Catholic realities

Her foundress was not.

 Her letter!

I am delighted by your election. I am immensely happy that with you, a man of the missionary Church, a man of true interculturality, a "shepherd who smells of sheep," has been elected Pope. And I am grateful that your election promises continuity with the work of Pope Francis. He has brought back to the center of the Church what belongs there: unconditional commitment to the vulnerable, the marginalized, the "discarded." This is Jesus' practice, and we must mobilize all our strengths for it. The choice of you and the name Leo, which you chose for yourself, give me hope that you will continue to lead the Church forward on this chosen path.

I myself am a nun and a teacher of theology. Last Thursday, May 8, 2025, I and my students, all young religious men, watched, spellbound, on their cell phones and laptops in a small lecture hall in El Salvador as the white smoke rose. We were swept away by the spirit of the cheering crowd in St. Peter's Square. We heard your first "Peace be with you" – and we were happy to hear this powerful word, into a world torn by war! And when you addressed us in Spanish and expressed your respect for the faith of Latin Americans, there was no stopping you.

I feel deeply connected to you

Brother Leo, I feel deeply connected to you in your commitment to a poor church, to a church of the poor. We are roughly the same age and share a similar biography: the calling to religious life, theological training in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the process of moving away from what one's own cultural identity means; from the global North, from a privileged society, to find our new home in Latin America; where we are so directly confronted with the wreaked havoc by the imperialist policies of the "developed countries" in other parts of the world.

I share with you the happiness of what it means to be welcomed as a sister, as a brother, in a place where the Gospel has immediate relevance, in a Church where one does not have to artificially search for the meaning of faith, but where faith is, for so many, the daily bread of survival.

Brother Pope, 50 years ago, I began my conscious journey in the Church with the natural, perhaps naive, confidence that it would only be a matter of a few years until we had found comprehensive fraternity in the Church; a Church in which there would no longer be hierarchies based on gender. I have placed my trust in a Church that is guided by Jesus and his practice, by his way of approaching women and men, a Church that will therefore, without reservation, put into practice the simple truth: "Your Father is one, who is in heaven" (Matthew 23:9), but you are all sisters and brothers!

A reasonable yet sensitive man

Leo, you are a reasonable yet sensitive man. When I heard your brief and clear address, I was very grateful because your sobriety and rationality contrast so refreshingly with the populist and irrational rhetoric of the macho men who currently dominate the world. And you are a canon lawyer. You know how much of the entire "apparatus" of the Catholic Church is not simply due to "divine law," but has grown historically, shaped by the context and the respective cultural situation; and how much is therefore also subject to change. The only thing that truly should be the "canon," the unshakable standard for how we should organize the Church, is the way Jesus established community and how his disciples gathered in their congregations through their encounter with the Risen One and the Pentecostal incursion of his Spirit. Everything else is man-made, historically developed—and can therefore be changed.

Dear Brother Pope, like you, I am shaped by my order's charism. I feel indebted to Mary Ward, who, more than 400 years ago, broke the boundaries of what was then legally possible under canon law. She broke out of the walls of her enclosure and thus made a significant contribution to paving the way for the active apostolic work of women in the Church. I think it is time again to break down walls and make room for the living Spirit of God.

It's about the Gospel

Leo, you are described as a man who can listen. And that's why I have the courage to address you with biblical parrhesia, with frankness, without fear, and without hesitation: It is high time that women be included, without any restrictions, in all offices and levels of the Church. Not as a gesture, not as an exception, not as a symbolic sign. But with full equality. It's not about power. It's about dignity. It's about truth. It's about the Gospel.

To be clear: I really don't want this office. I've never wanted it—and at almost 70, that would be ridiculous. But I want to help transform the ministry, the office of service in the Church, from the ground up. That we reshape it from the ground up, more Jesus-like, more fraternal. Not an exclusive privilege of one gender, but a shared service of men and women. This office will have to change, in its symbols, in its presentations, in everything.

I repeatedly hear the argument: "Now is not the right time, and such a step would provoke a schism." It may seem inappropriate to bother you with such a request just days after your election. But there will probably never be a right time, and the issue can no longer be postponed. Because the schism has long been taking place. It is the slow, unstoppable exodus of women (and men) who no longer feel at home in a Church that remains symbolically and structurally male. At best, this exodus occurs amid protest, but most often it occurs quietly, unnoticed, and frustrated. The scandal is not a bit of pink smoke over St. Peter's Basilica; the real scandal is that the representation of Jesus is still staged as a male privilege.

Power of Staging

The Catholic Church is a true master of staging. And this power of staging, used wisely, as a prophetic symbolic act, is a precious asset: Pope Francis's first trip to Lampedusa, his kiss on the feet of the Muslim asylum seeker, etc. I understand that you wanted to send a signal to some of your brothers in the College of Cardinals, to extend your hand to them when, at your first appearance, you again wore the red mozzetta and the gold-embroidered stole that Pope Francis had discarded 13 years ago, and when you allowed them to kiss your ring.

But precisely because you have a sense for these signals, I also hope that you understand what a fatal symbol it is when, at every celebration of the Eucharist, the central expression and center of the Christian community, we women are granted all sorts of things: we "may" read the reading, we "may" sing in the choir, we are no longer excluded from the sanctuary as "unclean," and perhaps even "may" serve as altar boys. Yet the one who presides over the Eucharist, who is empowered to proclaim the Gospel and interpret the Word of God in the sermon, who invokes the presence of Jesus Christ upon the bread and wine—is, time and again, inevitably a man. This is not a minor externality that we women simply have to accept—no, it is a wound in the heart of the Church.

We are becoming guilty

I am certainly not a feminist of the first hour, nor in danger of following any fashion trends, of uncritically submitting to the criteria of a secularized world. Rather, I was raised as a conservative nun. But we good women in the Church, we conformists, those who have repeatedly remained silent "for the sake of the greater whole," we are becoming guilty because we thus contribute to disfiguring the face of Jesus in the Church.

We must no longer do this. The Gospel obligates us to rise up from our deformity. To look you men straight and clearly in the eye and to put an end to your male cliques. Not so that we women have more power. No, rather, so that our joint service to the world becomes more credible.

Being a woman is not a moral quality, just as being a man is not a moral quality. We are sinners, but as such, we are called to make Jesus Christ present, both women and men, in this world that so desperately cries out for salvation. As women, we must no longer allow ourselves to be divided into the evil, aggressive feminists and the good, conformists who keep the system running. And I certainly must not allow myself to be divided into the "privileged women of the North with their luxury problems" and the Catholic women of the South, whose struggle for survival would teach them what truly matters. It is about coming together as women in true sisterly solidarity, across all cultural differences, standing together for a more just and humane world, and thus helping the Church to take on a face more like Jesus.

Many have since moved out

Many of my friends and companions have since moved out of this church. Some have become Protestant because they are allowed to exercise the ministry on an equal footing there; others have entered politics because they can achieve more there. I understand both sides. Still others have been stranded in disappointment, and this makes me truly sad.

None of these paths are open to me. I am incurably and passionately Catholic to the core. I can do nothing but be and remain in this Church. But that's why, with stubborn persistence, I expect from it the seemingly humanly impossible: that it truly, genuinely, and deeply expose itself to the transforming, Pentecostal Spirit of God.

One would like to shout to many clergy: Don't be so afraid! Why do you cling so stubbornly and so rigidly to the exclusively male office? Have the courage to let go, don't talk so much about evangelization, but let it happen to you! You will lose nothing in the process, except your stubbornness and your fears. Rather, you will rediscover yourselves in a richer, fuller humanity, capable of selfless service to others, to this wounded world thirsting for healing and redemption.

Shoulder to shoulder, changing the world

Dear Brother Pope, we have yet to get to know you. But I consider you a courageous man, a man who can allay the fears of his brothers and, at the same time, has the courage to change what seems set in stone. I will be infinitely grateful if you continue what you began your papacy with: peace. Speak with courage and authority against the authoritarian macho men of this world and their deadly strategies. Stand up against the North's isolationist policies against migrants. But also have the courage to break down the walls that repeatedly exclude and alienate your sisters in faith, those who carry this Church far and wide. Women are just as capable of leadership and responsibility as men. Perhaps in some respects they are even better at it, just as the reverse is certainly true.

I don't want this Church to remain an archaic relic, a reflection of a social order that is no longer sustainable. I want us, women and men, to work shoulder to shoulder to change this world. And that includes beginning with the full integration of women into all leadership positions in the Church. Immediately. Not someday.

With determination, love for the Church, and burning hope,

Your sister Martha

Source   Ordinatio Sacerdotalis closed finally the already closed issue of female ordination

Cathcon: Who does she think she is?  Pope Leo is not her brother but the Holy Father.

"Women in the priesthood...that's ridiculous."

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