The Feminine Exiled, Exploited, and Violated in the Name of “Sacred” Obedience: A Typically “Catholic” Problem

Clarifying Preamble

Although I grew up in a Catholic family, I never truly felt part of that tradition. From a young age, I perceived Catholicism not as a living spiritual inheritance, but as a closed institutional system—strongly exclusionary, subordinated to established power, and steeped in a clerical patriarchy that suffocates rather than guides. An authority that doesn’t forge but weakens, that doesn’t accompany but crushes.

As a woman, it became immediately clear to me—“clarified” with little delicacy, indeed with a certain paternalistic disdain—that this religion could never offer me real spaces for personal expression or cultural development. Within the Catholic framework, everything I could aspire to be was secondary to a man—not a full subject of faith. The roles offered were always marginal, servile, discretionary: educator, catechist, housekeeper, devoted wife, silent nun. Always functional to a male order, always subordinated to an untouchable, self-referential clergy.

As a girl, the only paths laid out for me were heterosexual, reproductive marriage—which I never entered with zero regret—or educational and charitable missions profoundly misaligned with my intellectual inclinations and existential ambitions. I found no listening, dignity, or horizons. Only obedience and compliance. My thirst for meaning, critical thought, spirituality incarnated in history and in the struggles of the present, was systematically silenced or diverted.

Let me be clear: I am not speaking about Islam or generic “patriarchal religious models.” I am speaking of Roman Catholicism: institutionalized, clericalized, Eurocentric. The one that claims to speak “on behalf of all” but systematically excludes women from sacraments, ministries, and recognized theological thought; that silences dissent in the name of obedience. That has made the female body a mute symbol used to speak of virginity, maternity, temptation, devotion—but never voice, speech, or leadership.

Paradoxically, in other religious contexts—as in Islam—I have encountered women who, thanks to an autonomous feminine spirituality, have carved out symbolic, cultural, and communal spaces unthinkable in Catholicism: sheikhas, preachers, scholars, spiritual guides—female figures respected, recognized, even consulted by men. Something the Catholic Church stubbornly refuses in the name of a tradition manipulated to preserve caste domination.

I did not leave Catholicism on a whim. I left it for intellectual honesty and personal dignity. I keep speaking about it because I cannot resign myself to the belief that faith must be a place of exclusion. Speaking about it is an act of freedom, but also a gesture of love toward all the women who still feel guilty for not being “good enough” for the Church. They are not the ones who must change. It is the Church that must convert. Mine is and remains a radical search for knowledge, not faith. A search for meaning that finds no welcome or legitimacy in an institutional Catholic Church that continues to systematically exclude women from sacramental, decision-making, and symbolic spaces. I identify much more with gnosis—understood as the search for universal symbolic sacredness—where perpetual seeking, knowledge, and dialogue with “others” (by origin, culture, and faith) are tools of inner and spiritual liberation, not control or conformity.

It is significant to note that I’ve never experienced similar exclusionary or infantilizing attitudes toward members of other religions. As patriarchal as some religious traditions may be, I have found a theology and praxis far more oriented toward equality and the promotion of human—and especially women’s—rights in Protestantism (especially historic European contexts); in Judaism, a valuing of female theological and philosophical thought across its diverse currents; and in Islam, I have met theologians, Shari’a scholars, and thinkers who have established themselves as authoritative voices without subordinating themselves to male theologians.

Paradoxically, the marked sexual distinction within Islam (whether one agrees or not) — the obligation of the hijab, separate spaces, strict rules of interaction—often results in a more authentic and respectful relational space between women and men. Sexual separatism, instead of translating into subordination, has fostered within Islam the emergence of authoritative female figures with whom other women naturally identify, confide, and choose as guides (theologians, scholars, women leading prayer for other women).

Of course, Islam is a plural reality—as is Protestantism within Christianity—so I refer to major, ancient traditions, not extremist sects often funded by Western nations. In this scenario, Muslim male theologians often recognize and respect their female interlocutors precisely because they operate within a shared theological language—separate, but in no way subordinate.

Catholicism, on the contrary, systematically excludes women from decision-making and sacramental spaces while strongly exposing and “highlighting” them socially and symbolically—often without offering protection or guarantees. The invitation to Catholic women to “be present” in community life—reading in church, teaching catechism, animating liturgy, overseeing charity—often accompanies rhetoric glorifying a “vocation of service” and a “special female sensitivity”—but always on a completely unpaid basis. However, their presence remains structurally devoid of power, institutional representation, or self-determination. Women are invited to “be there,” not to decide. To “nurture the community,” not to lead. To “serve,” but never to preside.

This exposure—unaccompanied by sacramental recognition, spiritual authority, or concrete protection—makes women extremely vulnerable, not just symbolically or morally, but also physically. Women who live their faith in mixed ecclesial contexts without the safeguard of independent spaces or authoritative female figures are often exposed to gaze, abuse of power, or in worst cases, actual sexual appetites, disguised as spiritual fatherhood or pastoral guidance. The recent history of the Catholic Church is unfortunately marked by numerous scandals confirming this.

In Muslim contexts—despite limits we cannot always share or accept—the issue is addressed radically differently. The separatist model that institutes radically distinct religious spaces for men and women guarantees women at least their own spaces and forms of female guidance: sheikhas, scholars, murshidat, preachers, and trainers, often highly respected within communities. Even in more conservative settings, Muslim women have access to female spiritual figures who accompany them, understand them, protect them—creating a safer relational ecology where spiritual authority is not a male monopoly, and women are not reduced to ornamental auxiliaries of the assembly.

In Catholic realms, the promotion of “female presence” is far too often developed without serious reflection on power, vulnerability, or dynamics of domination. Women are present, yes—but precariously. Without protection, without a voice, without the possibility to shield themselves from ambiguous contexts. More than participation, this is dangerous exposure—especially for younger, more devout, or more vulnerable women. Without a real ecclesiological reform that includes female sacredness in ministries and governance charisms, this situation can only persist.

Paradoxically, from those worlds so often “demonized” by dominant Catholic discourse, I—as a woman—have received listening, esteem, recognition.

This reflection thus arises from long personal experience and in-depth study. It is not a provocation but an act of intellectual honesty and critical reflection that I wish to share, aiming to enrich public and cultural debate on a theme that concerns us all. I have no interest in Roman Catholicism as a “faith member.” I repeat: I do not feel, in practice or principle, part of this community, though formally baptized. Nor am I interested in its internal theological dynamics or debates. My perspective is secular and purely sociological, intending to illuminate a symbolic phenomenon with real social and political echoes. If this were purely a “religious” or “spiritual” phenomenon, it would be benign and secondary. Sadly, we know it is not.It is not merely a theological problem, then, but a structural and political issue of systemic discrimination. It is not just about whether women can “say Mass” or “hear confessions”—which might seem irrelevant or merely liturgical—but about access to symbolic power, to recognition, to sacred legitimacy. In Catholicism, every role of doctrinal authority and sacramental mediation is monopolized by the male gender, under the guise of divine will. The ecclesial structure reproduces and sacralizes male domination in all its forms, portraying it as God-ordained and immutable.

This monopoly does not only affect women but the entire community. A church that excludes women from the altar, from the pulpit, from the spaces where decisions are made, is a church that impoverishes itself, losing half of humanity’s spiritual intelligence, experience, and voice. The result is not only an injustice to women but also a collective spiritual atrophy: a masculine monologue mistaken for divine revelation.

Let us not deceive ourselves with gestures of apparent openness: women reading the Gospel at Mass, distributing communion, organizing parish activities, speaking at synods as “guests”—these are often symbolic “concessions” devoid of institutional consequences. Real power—doctrinal, sacramental, canonical—remains entirely in male hands. And when women dare to call this out, they are accused of disobedience, of pride, of falling into “clericalism” (the same clericalism they are in fact excluded from!).

The irony is grotesque: women cannot be priests because they are not “ontologically configured” to Christ, yet the Church continues to venerate countless female saints who lived and spoke with evangelical authority well beyond any institutional recognition. Women mystics, martyrs, doctors of the Church—all canonized after their death, once their bodies and words could no longer challenge male prerogatives.

The prohibition against female ordination is perhaps the last great theological apartheid in a supposedly “universal” Church. Just as in the past slavery, colonialism, and racial exclusion were justified with passages from Scripture, today the exclusion of women is still presented as an immutable dogma. But immutable for whom? And for how long?

One cannot help but ask: what God is this, who calls everyone to the faith but grants full participation only to men? What theology is this, that sees the feminine as incapable of embodying divine authority? What spiritual vision is this, that speaks of love and justice while institutionalizing inequality?

I am well aware that some Catholic women sincerely live their faith and even find fulfillment in ecclesial roles. I do not deny their sincerity nor their devotion. But I ask: what could these same women become, what could they bring, what could they transform—if only they were given equal dignity and full access to theological, pastoral, and symbolic authority?

The feminine does not ask to imitate the masculine, but to be recognized in its own sacred uniqueness. To be able to generate, speak, act—not only biologically or emotionally, but spiritually and intellectually. To be Church, not only serve it. And this is not a matter of quotas or clerical ambitions, but of justice, coherence, and credibility.

In a time when the Catholic Church is rapidly losing legitimacy—due to scandals, rigidity, detachment from the needs of contemporary humanity—an authentic opening to the feminine could be a source of renewal and transfiguration. But this requires courage, humility, and a break with centuries of male-centered theological monopoly.

Until that happens, the Catholic Church will continue to preach a universal love which, in fact, remains gendered, hierarchical, and partial. A love that blesses obedience, not liberation. That exalts sacrifice, but not mutuality. That speaks of Mary, but forbids her daughters to speak in her name.

And I say this not with rancor, but with clarity. I do not seek a seat at a table that does not recognize me. I seek to break the table, or rather, to build others: round, inclusive, sacred in their very diversity. Spaces where no one is excluded because of gender, status, or doctrine. Where the sacred is no longer an inheritance of the few, but the common breath of all.

Let us not fear naming things for what they are. The problem of the Catholic Church is not modernity, not secularization, not “gender ideology.” The real problem is a sacralized patriarchy that refuses to die. And like all systems of power in decline, it hides behind tradition, victimhood, and divine right.

But the Spirit, if it exists, is elsewhere. It walks with the marginalized, speaks through unexpected voices, dwells in the cracks. And sooner or later, even the Church will have to listen. Not a Role to Claim, but a Justice to Enact

The priesthood is not a privilege to be conquered, nor a role to be distributed in the name of formal equality. It is, in its truest essence, a prophetic service to the community—a space where the Word is spoken, the Bread is broken, and the People gather. Therefore, the question of women’s access to ordained ministry cannot be reduced to a power struggle or a simplistic feminist demand, as its opponents often caricature it.

This is not about demanding “more space for women,” but about restoring justice within the ecclesial body. A justice that concerns the entire Church—because without full recognition of women’s subjectivity, the Church is mutilated, the image of God distorted, and the representation of Christ incomplete.

Denying women access to the priesthood impoverishes the Church of its anthropological fullness: it excludes half of humanity from the possibility of sacramentally embodying salvific mediation. It is as if to say: “God cannot speak through you because your body does not conform.” This logic echoes ancient and deeply embedded dualist and sexist paradigms, which separate flesh from spirit, male from the universal, and ultimately betray the incarnational message of the Gospel.

The Gospel offers us a radically different image of Jesus: a Christ who allows himself to be touched by the hemorrhaging woman, who welcomes the tears of the sinful woman, who entrusts the first Easter proclamation to Mary Magdalene, who is challenged—and changed—by the Syrophoenician woman asking for crumbs of salvation. Christ never erected gendered barriers between himself and the Other. On the contrary, he welcomed women's touch, questions, and courage, receiving from them prophetic gestures and words of truth.

This is the faithfulness to Christ that must be reclaimed: not one that imitates the male institutional model of power, but one that restores the centrality of a living, relational, spiritually fertile encounter between the Lord and each human being, without gender hierarchies.

To recognize the priestly vocation of women is to heal an ancient wound, to repair a broken justice, to liberate the Gospel from the prison of sacralized patriarchy. It is an ecclesial and spiritual act. Because as long as women are told: “You cannot represent Christ,” the Church will continue to deny the Christ who represented God for all.

In short, this is not about asking for a role to be granted, but about naming a sin and enacting a justice.

Prophecy or Death

Either the Church opens itself to the breath of the Spirit and recognizes the feminine difference as a source of full ministerial authority, or it will condemn itself to become a museum-like structure—preserving but no longer generating, repeating but no longer prophesying.

Those who truly love the Church do not defend it in its rigidity: they call it to conversion. Those who love the Church, change it. And they change it not against Christ, but to remain faithful to that same Christ who allowed himself to be anointed by a woman, followed by a woman, and witnessed by a woman.