Pope Francis may be remembered in the history of the Church as the pope of women. Throughout these years he has carried out reforms and appointments that have expanded the space for women in the Church. When in 2013 an Argentinian man dressed in white stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter's to introduce himself as the new bishop of the universal Church, few imagined that 'universal' was so serious. The fact is that the new pope was going to give light, to make concrete government decisions about those whom no one took into consideration or who, for some reason, were marginalized. The poor, immigrants and women have been his favorites; with him, they have occupied a new space in the Church.

From the very beginning, we found a courageous pope, ready to generate new dynamism, to open up processes. A man of clear convictions and great tenacity, he stressed the importance of time to project changes into the future and make them lasting. He understood immediately that the Church needed a greater participation of women, especially in decision-making. It was not an easy goal : centuries of history had created a structure in which government was an exclusively male domain of cardinals and bishops, who had to learn to share their space with women who were beginning to take center stage.

Francis has made historic decisions. The phrase for the first time a woman has been constant. Just a few days ago came the news of the appointment of Sister Raffaella Petrini as the new president of the Vatican Government. Until now she had been the administrative assistant general, a position she had held since 2021. Also, within the reform of the Roman Curia (which can be understood as the offices that assist the Pope in the government of the Church), one of the core topic has been to juridically expand the possibilities for lay people to occupy decisive positions. Thus, under-secretaries have been appointed in various dicasteries and women have been given core topic functions, such as having a voice in the election of bishops or the right to vote in synods. Another example of this change is Barbara Jatta, who since 2016 has headed the Vatican Museums, becoming the first woman to hold this position. Moreover, until this year, in the history of the Church no woman had ever held the position of prefect of a dicastery. 

Since the year 2021, breaking with an entrenched mentality, women can access lay ministries. Traditionally, only men could perform these roles, and the 1983 Code of Canon Law had maintained this exclusion. However, this prohibition had no theological basis. There is no doubt that the Pope could not remain indifferent to a possible injustice. With a modification of the canon law on lay ministries, he put an end to what the doctrine considered the last legal discrimination against women in the Church.

These actions have generated new dynamism. In fact, the issue of women working in the Roman Curia in the last ten years has risen from 19% to 26%. The Pope is satisfied with the result, he has affirmed that since there are women in the Roman Curia things work better and that the judgments on future bishops are sharper. Herein lies the core topic, the engine of change: complementarity between the sexes. If male and female are complementary, as Christian anthropology affirms, then a government without women is incomplete. This is the basis of his conviction that increasing the issue of women in decision-making positions is good for everyone. This is why, on multiple occasions, Francis has stated that giving women their rightful place in the Church is not an achievement of feminism. His decisions are far from being political or ideological. Nor is it a concession, but rather a response to the right they have as baptized women. 

Although it is important that women be present in certain positions, the Pope has insisted that giving them their rightful place is not just a functional issue. We must avoid thinking that the full participation of women in the Church can be solved with an ever-growing list of things they can do. This is a very poor perspective, which reduces the problem to a labor issue with nuances of convenience. 

Lasting change requires a theological deepening of the place that women have in the Church. He has encouraged the need for a feminine theology, to discover the fundamental role that women have played in the Church since the earliest days of Christianity. To this end, the Pope wanted to highlight the women of the Gospel, from the Virgin Mary to Mary Magdalene. At the Pope's express wish, the celebration of the Magdalene, whom the Pope calls the apostle of the apostles, has become a feast day in the Church. John Paul II had already highlighted the importance of women in the Gospel, and Francis has acted in continuity with that magisterium. Simply put, what was theoretically formulated, he had the audacity to put it into action. Francis knew where he wanted to go, he was clear about the change and he has demonstrated it with the absolute coherence of his decisions. But a change of mentality requires patience, and we should not be surprised that novelties meet with resistance among those who cling to the phrase "it has always been done this way".

It takes time to achieve harmony in change, but taking the first step, which opens the way, requires great people. I have no doubt that Pope Francis has opened horizons that will never close again. He has reminded us that the Church is a woman, so that only with us, women, can it truly be the Church.