Liberal Pope Turns on Feminists: They’re Just Macho Men ‘With Skirts’

“Inviting a woman to speak is not shifting into the mode of an ecclesiastical feminism.”

Pope Francis responded to a critical speech by a female Church leader Friday by commenting that feminism is always “machismo with a skirt.”

Linda Ghisoni, undersecretary for the Laity at the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life, was the first of three women to speak at a Vatican summit about clerical sex abuse. She rejected the notion that there was too much focus on the issue, saying abuse priests are “howling wolves” who disperse the flock.

Francis, who is widely seen as a liberal reformer, was inclined to agree. Addressing the assembled bishops next, he said: “I heard the Church speaking about herself.”

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However, he made clear that listening to Catholic women is not the same as embracing feminism, which he harshly rejected in all its forms.

“Inviting a woman to speak is not shifting into the mode of an ecclesiastical feminism, because in the end every feminism ends up being machismo with a skirt,” Francis said. “No, inviting a woman to speak about the wounds of the church is to invite the church to speak about herself, about the wounds she has.”

Despite his beloved status among many liberals, thanks in part to his socialist leanings, the pope has gotten in trouble for his remarks about women before, including when in 2014 he referred to female members of the International Theological Commission as “the strawberries on the cake.”

In the past year, Francis has also faced criticism for his handling of the church’s ongoing sex abuse scandal, which he earlier this month acknowledged involves nuns, too.

At the end of the four-day Meeting for the Protection of Minors in the Church on Sunday, Francis said that priests preying on children reminded him of “the cruel religious practice, once widespread in certain cultures, of sacrificing human beings – frequently children – in pagan rites.”

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Andrew Tobin is Pluralist’s Editor-in-chief.

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