As expected, and already announced, the General Synod of the Anglican Church has given the green light to the ordination of women as bishops. In 2012, the necessary majority was not reached, especially by some lay people; two years later, "this dream has become a reality". A fact that divides the Church again into two halves, in time and space. What has happened now, and what has been lived now. And with regard to the present moment: on the one hand, Catholics, Orthodox and Lefebvrians do not admit women to the priesthood; on the other hand, Protestants - in a broad sense - have been allowing them access to the presbyterate and the episcopate for decades.

The ordination of women, they say, would fill the void left by the crisis of vocations to ecclesial ministry. Why? Because it would better express the equality between both sexes within the Church: "There is no longer male and female..." (Galatians 3:28). In this way the promotion of women within the Church would occupy its rightful place, they conclude. Moreover, there was not only a consensus but an overwhelming majority.... So who is in charge in the Anglican Church and what is the will of the majority, of course? The will of the majority, of course. That same day the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, declared himself in favor of euthanasia, "in certain cases". The next discussion is thus served.

This episode raises, however, the question of the place of women in the Church and, more specifically, in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has recalled the feminine condition of the Church: she is the bride of Christ. John Paul II wrote at the end of the declaration of priestly ordination on the question at hand, that the most important person after Jesus Christ in the Church is not the Pope. Neither a cardinal nor a bishop. Not even a priest. It is a woman: Mary. In the Church there is "diversity of charisms and ministries" (1 Cor 12:4) and women occupy a central and eminent place. Above the apostles themselves and their successors, the Pope and the bishops. Jesus could have chosen women -more faithful than the apostles- for this ministry. But he left them something more important. I remember the astonished face of a Lutheran pastor when I told her about it in Berlin.