"Equality between men and women, including religious": the French offensive against Ordinatio Sacerdotalis

Context

An opinion piece published in La Croix on July 12, 2026, signed by historian Annie Crépin and a collective, argues that "equality between women and men is intended to apply to all social spaces, including religious ones." Starting point: the reception by Leon XIV of an Anglican archbishop in April. Central argument: the exclusion of women from ordained ministries would constitute direct discrimination based on sex, difficult to reconcile with European law. We had followed last week two German and Italian signals going in the same direction. France now joins the round, this time with the artillery of community law.

The Facts

Nine German students were awarded in July 2026 for their application to seminary. An Italian archbishop suggested co-presiding over the Mass by a woman. The diocese of St. Gallen is questioning a "popess." The French collective, based on Leon XIV's gesture in April, proposes to have the question decided by anti-discrimination law. The demonstration overlooks the distinction between civil society and supernatural society.

Doctrinal Analysis

The Church can no more ordain a woman to the priesthood than rewrite the Passion. Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (John Paul II, May 22, 1994, n. 4) states: "The Church in no way has the power to confer priestly ordination on women, and this judgment is to be definitively held by all the faithful of the Church." Canon 1024 confirms: "Only a baptized man validly receives sacred ordination." This is not a disciplinary preference, but a definitive teaching of the ordinary universal Magisterium, confirmed in 1995 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Responsum ad dubium, October 28, 1995). The Catechism (n. 1577) bases this reservation on the example of the Lord who chose twelve men to form the apostolic college.

Stakes for the Church and the Faithful

The offensive extends the logic of post-Fiducia Supplicans: normalizing on the margins what remains inaccessible at the center. The real risk is not this opinion piece. It is in the episcopal fatigue, the fear of being accused of misogyny, the temptation of a pastoral compromise that would nibble at doctrine through gestures, this time through law.

Critical Reading

The European legal argument backfires. Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) explicitly recognizes the "status enjoyed, under national law, by churches and religious associations or communities," and commits the Union to an "open, transparent and regular dialogue" with them. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly upheld the internal autonomy of cults (Fernández Martínez v. Spain, 2014; Károly Nagy v. Hungary, 2017): the criteria for access to ordained ministries fall under canon law, not civil courts. Demanding that Brussels impose parity in the seminary is asking the Union to trample on its own treaty.

To Reflect and Act

This week, let us say again in our parishes what the priesthood is: a gift, not a right. Let us pray for our priests, let us name them. The woman is not excluded from the common priesthood (1 P 2, 9), which she exercises eminently in the Virgin Mary, who holds the highest place in the Communion of Saints. It is not Brussels that will give it to her.