The issue of the role of women in the Church has become one of the axes of the current synodal process, especially in countries like Germany, where the so-called “Synodal Way” has driven reform proposals that directly affect the understanding of ministry and the ecclesial structure. In this context, the French Dominican, Édouard Divry, offers a theological response that points to the core of the problem: the tendency to reread the faith from ideological schemes alien to Revelation.
It is not the Church that must adapt
For Divry, one of the most problematic assumptions of these currents is to hold that the Church has not fully “rehabilitated” women. This approach implies assuming that the Church has deviated from Christ’s intention. In his words, it is a “Protestant-type presumption” that “directly confronts the divine constitution of the Church.”
From the Catholic perspective, this hypothesis does not hold. The Church may need purification in its members, but it has not betrayed its essential constitution. Pretending to correct it from external categories means introducing a “hermeneutic rupture” that Benedict XVI already denounced as a logic of “discontinuity and rupture.”
Hierarchy, a reality willed by Christ
The theologian also dismantles the idea that the hierarchical structure is a later construction or a form of domination. Christ himself instituted a concrete organization by choosing the Twelve and conferring on Peter a singular mission.
“It is not a sociological domination,” explains Divry, but rather “a sacramental order oriented toward service.” Confusing this plane with the fundamental equality of all the baptized leads to errors of interpretation. As Saint Paul reminds us, “there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Ga 3:28), which does not eliminate the diversity of functions within the Church.
Mary, far from any caricature
One of the points where these distortions are most evident is in the interpretation of female figures. The reading that presents the Virgin Mary as a symbol of submission is, according to the Dominican, a clear theological error.
Mary’s “fiat” is not passivity, but a decisive act of freedom. As tradition reminds us, the Virgin’s yes commits all humanity to the history of salvation. “God does not want a slave for a spouse,” Divry emphasizes, insisting that the relationship between Christ and the Church is founded on freedom.
Feminism and loss of universality
Divry is especially clear in evaluating certain feminist currents within the ecclesial sphere: “There is in some feminist claims a loss of universality so flagrant,” he warns.
In his view, introducing categories like “patriarchy” or “equality of functions” transfers sociopolitical schemes into the interior of the Church that do not respond to its nature. In that context, the priesthood is presented as a right or a promotion, when in reality “it is not part of the rights of the person,” but belongs “to the economy of the mystery of Christ and the Church.”
Difference is not inequality
The key, the Dominican insists, lies in understanding that the diversity of vocations does not imply inferiority. The Church fully recognizes the dignity of women and their irreplaceable role in Christian life, but without confusing functions.
In this sense, he recalls that the mission of figures like Mary Magdalene—“apostle to the apostles”—does not equate to the priestly ministry. These are distinct spheres within the same communion.
At a time when reform proposals are multiplying from ideological keys, the warning is clear: fidelity to the Gospel does not consist in adapting it to the categories of the time, but in welcoming the mystery of the Church in all its depth, where the equality of the baptized coexists with the diversity of vocations.
Source: Tribune Chrétienne