PLEASE NOTE: A multi-language PDF of the printed brochure of the following Petition to Pope Francis, with an introduction in English, can be downloaded here. For the main historical evidence, please see our previous “Documented Appeal to Pope Francis to Request the Re-instatement of the Ordained Diaconate for Women” (September 2015), which opens in a new website.

Dear Pope Francis,


We are writing to you in response to the continued delay in restoring women to their rightful place as co-leaders and ministers alongside men, as they were in the early Church following the model of equality taught by Jesus Christ.


Despite calls for women to be ordained as deacons and priests from synodal groups in most corners of the world, why has this question of justice been relegated to a closed-door study controlled by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and not open to external experts and public scrutiny.



The People of God, our Catholic community, suffers severely from misjudgements of women perpetuated by church practices and outdated magisterial ‘teachings’. We appeal to you to take decisive steps to eradicate this damaging evil. We draw your attention especially to the following ancient prejudices against women that your brother clerics within the Vatican are still shackled by in their treatment of women’s vocations to ministry:



  • “Women were created to be helpmates to support men.” WRONG. Women were created in God’s image, equal to men.

  • “By the way they behave and present themselves women lead men into temptation and sin.” WRONG. Women are not more prone to sexual misconduct than men are.

  • “Women are subject to their husbands”. WRONG. In a Christian marriage husbands and wives share equal rights and equal duties.

  • “Women cannot provide leadership in spiritual matters.” WRONG. Women are as competent as men to take spiritual leadership positions.

  • “The early women deacons only received a blessing, not a full ordination.”  WRONG. For a thousand years women were sacramentally ordained deacons, through a rite that was essentially identical to that given to men.

  • “By choosing only men to be part of the twelve apostles Jesus indicated that men should perform the sacred ministries.” WRONG. By imparting the same sacrament of baptism to both men and women, Jesus empowered women as much as men to perform all ministries.

  • “Jesus addressed ‘Do this in memory of me’ only to men thereby instituting a male priesthood for all time to come.” WRONG. Jesus’ words ‘Do this in memory of me’ were spoken equally to men and women.


These prejudices continue to inflict harm. They inflict injustices on women and make them feel second-class and indeed encourage the world to treat them as second class. They deprive the faithful of the many benefits women would bring to them through their ministerial services. Since some of these prejudices are still supported by official church teaching in spite of their contradicting Sacred Scripture and theological evidence, they seriously undermine the credibility of the magisterium.  Last but not least, these prejudices make many women feel no longer at home and cause them to leave the Catholic Church. We also draw your attention to John Wijngaards’ forthcoming book Why Christ Rejects all Church Prejudice against Women (Acadian House 2024). It extensively documents both the prevalence of those prejudices on all continents and the theological arguments that prove that they are not correct.


In view of all this we urgently request you, Holy Father, to take the first decisive step towards reform by restoring the sacramental ordination of women as deacons and set up reliable church bodies to examine women’s admission to the priesthood and episcopacy.


Miriam Duignan

CEO of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research