PR for People Monthly SEPTEMBER 2015 | Page 6

Sister Who?

By Patricia Vaccarino

Pope Francis travels the world commingling with the common folk. His every smile and ceremonial laying of hands is captured in all forms of media. The Pope has stated in numerous press conferences that women could have a greater role in the church. But the Pope has also made it abundantly clear that only men can be priests.

The message is one and the same: Women have a place in the Roman Catholic Church, so long as they do all the grunt work, but they will never have any prestige, power or financial dignity.

A recent papal review, “Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” noted:

The Holy See acknowledges with gratitude the great contribution of Women Religious to the Church in the United States, as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals and institutions of support for the poor, which have been founded and staffed by Religious over the years.

We could examine the changing role of women in the Roman Catholic Church and whether women should be ordained as priests, but instead the true story about how the Church feels about women is told by showing how the Church does not provide financial support for its aging sisters. The nuns, who toiled away as the rank and file worker bees in schools, hospitals and homeless shelters, are the backbone of the Church’s mandate to serve the people of God.